tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-41832613287679126102024-03-13T22:29:23.660+01:00(R)Evolutionary AgilitySharing thoughts and hands-on experiences about helping myself, people and teams make our workplaces and lives more productive with Agile and Lean.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11536310861961046111noreply@blogger.comBlogger56125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4183261328767912610.post-59275563683267237092018-01-16T14:47:00.001+01:002018-01-16T14:47:34.515+01:00State of Scrum 2017-2018: the future is Agile!<br />
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<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-2Vtl2bnrN9A/Wl4BaNsMm1I/AAAAAAAACWI/vc8vG03f6wYYXlN1uJTe9-hV_YlDDzxLACEwYBhgL/s1600/S_SOS_2017-2018Edition.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="519" data-original-width="1600" height="128" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-2Vtl2bnrN9A/Wl4BaNsMm1I/AAAAAAAACWI/vc8vG03f6wYYXlN1uJTe9-hV_YlDDzxLACEwYBhgL/s400/S_SOS_2017-2018Edition.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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At the beginning of new year, Scrum Alliance, the largest certifying body in the Agile community, released State of Scrum 2017-2018, an annual report which summarizes Scrum and Agile practices and predictions around the world. <br /><br />More than 2,000 Scrum professionals responded to the survey, representing 91 countries and 27 industries and the report this year shows Agile transformation firmly on the horizon for organizations all over the world.<br /><br />Approximately half of respondents – 53 percent – report current involvement in an Agile transformation, and of those not currently involved in an organization-wide Agile transformation, 56 percent anticipate one in the future, which is not surprising.<br /><br />Other key findings from the 2017-2018 report include: </div>
<br />
<ul>
<li>97 percent will continue to use Scrum in the future. </li>
<li>85 percent say Scrum continues to improve quality of work life.</li>
<li>ScrumMaster is the most popular certification, selected by 84 percent of respondents.</li>
<li>78 percent use “Scrum and Other” approaches to Agile, and the diversity of frameworks increased from the previous year. </li>
</ul>
Active senior management sponsorship and support is the number one motivator to undertake an Agile transformation, and enterprises look to executive leadership to spearhead Agile initiatives.<br /><br />While many respondents anticipate change to come and suggest it is necessary to reach business goals including improved satisfaction with products delivered, better time to market, better quality and improved staff morale, 57 percent say <b>organizational design and culture</b> is what holds Agile transformation back.<br /><br />This definitely resonates with my personal experience in coaching and transitioning enterprise departments: <b>company culture</b> can make or break an agile transition. <br />Yet few transitioning organizations do anything much to purposefully change their culture. <br />Culture is seen as fluffy and intangible, and changing it is risky. Having dozens of Scrum teams is very tangible and an easy KPI, but distributing authority to teams is a bit scary and also difficult to measure. <br />My experience tells me that this perspective is due to a lack of knowledge about:<br /><ol>
<li>what culture is</li>
<li>the strong impact it has on behavior</li>
<li>how you make it visible </li>
<li>how you change it.</li>
</ol>
For instance most leaders say that their biggest problem is knowing and understanding what is happening on the factory floor. Yet very few leaders and few companies spend effort on actually observing people and their interactions.<br /><br />If you want to talk and learn more about any of these four topics, I will be happy to help.<br /><br />To learn more about Scrum Alliance and the State of Scrum, please visit <a href="http://info.scrumalliance.org/State-of-Scrum-2017-18.html">http://info.scrumalliance.org/State-of-Scrum-2017-18.html</a>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11536310861961046111noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4183261328767912610.post-52701154320205301232017-10-02T14:29:00.000+02:002017-10-02T17:43:53.075+02:00Agile Education at a primary school in Italy - Part 2<span lang="EN-US"><i>In a previous <a href="http://evolutionaryagility.blogspot.se/2017/09/agile-education-at-primary-school-in.html">blog post</a>, I introduced the experiment my brother and I conducted between November 2016 and May 2017 applying Scrum in a primary school in Italy.</i></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US"><i>I talked about how the whole idea started, how we selected the school project and how we kicked off the experiment. In this post you will find the whole experience report, the results of the experiment and some conclusion we feel we could draw.</i></span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US"><i><br /></i></span>
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<h2>
<span lang="EN-US">The experience report<o:p></o:p></span></h2>
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<span lang="EN-US">The stand-up routine triggered very quickly
some interesting behaviors right from Sprint 1.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Each team had their stand-up meeting on
Tuesdays, Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays from 8.45 to 9.00, where each kid
learned to explain:<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial;">●<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><span lang="EN-US">What did I do since our last
stand-up meeting that helped my team meet the Sprint Goal?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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</span></span><!--[endif]--><span lang="EN-US">What will I do today to help my
team meet the Sprint Goal?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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</span></span><!--[endif]--><span lang="EN-US">Do I see any impediment that
prevents me or my team from meeting the Sprint Goal?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">In the same days they got one hour to
actually execute the tasks they had pulled into work.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">The self-organizing daily planning was
pretty rapidly received and understood by the kids, even though it was a
completely new practice for them. It even affected school entrance punctuality
in a very positive way: all kids tended to arrive on time to attend the
stand-up and not to lose the opportunity to speak up.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">As described in the previous <a href="http://evolutionaryagility.blogspot.se/2017/09/agile-education-at-primary-school-in.html">post</a>, each
backlog item consisted in representing one of the 20 Italian regions on
construction paper, visualizing morphological characteristics, hydrography and
main cities; the team which pulled the story had to study everything concerning
the specific learning object, including economic activities, relevant
historical figures, monuments, customs and traditions, without this information
was presented or explained in any way.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Each Sprint was three weeks long and ended
with a Sprint Review where each team had to show what they learned and created
during the Sprint to the teacher and the rest of the class. The shape they
created on the construction paper was also integrated on the big map to get a
truly potentially shippable product at the end of each Sprint, which all teams
contributed to. Many even deepened the subjects presented in the school book with
additional researches and volunteer studies.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">The demo was organized directly by the
students in an autonomous and simple fashion, by splitting tasks inside each
team. Each kid had his/her specific role in the product presentation, even
though everyone was able to discuss any aspect concerning the region under
review: this was yet another proof point for us that the ability to
self-organize is kind of natural and desirable even for the youngest.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US">After the joint Sprint Review, each team
had their own Sprint Retrospective to encourage a collective self-reflection
both on the quality of the work done and on the interpersonal dynamics which
characterized the path towards the delivered product at the end of Sprint.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">The retrospectives, held before starting
the new Sprint, were facilitated in a lightweight way (e.g. using
straightforward activities like <a href="http://retrospectivewiki.org/index.php?title=Glad,_Sad,_Mad"><span style="color: blue;">Mad-Sad-Glad</span></a>) to allow the kids to point out more
easily the key items to reflect upon. Usually each retrospective had an
individual reflection time first and then a team sharing to give everyone equal
air time and avoid stronger characters to take the monopoly of the
conversation. </span><br />
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span>
<span lang="EN-US">The highest voted improvement item by the team triggered a team
commitment to one or more improvement actions to execute in the coming Sprint.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">For instance, in the first Sprint, one of
the teams had wrongly interpreted the information on the atlas map and included
inside Veneto (Venice region) a big lake where you are supposed to
find Dolomites! During the retrospective the team had the chance to reflect
that, possibly, studying the region first, before representing it graphically
on the construction paper, would be a better option (before the end of the
school year they also managed to fix the mistake effectively!).<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">It was extremely interesting for us to
notice how, thanks to regular retrospectives, each team developed a
self-consciousness of being one team with one common goal. </span><br />
<span lang="EN-US">At the beginning,
some students, usually poorly disposed to stay focused and participate actively
to the school activities, tended to isolate during the daily working time or to
group with classmates from other teams, who had the same low commitment or
the same poor inclination to teamwork.</span><br />
<br />
<span lang="EN-US">These aspects started to emerge during
the Sprint retrospective and some kids, publicly confronted by their teammates,
first reacted with denial and even burst into tears, accusing the others of not
involving them. Every team has to go through a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuckman%27s_stages_of_group_development"><span style="color: blue;">Storming phase</span></a>!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">However these heated debates brought their
fruits. </span><br />
<span lang="EN-US">The students, who did not show commitment, realized that their
disengagement wasn’t going unnoticed; at the same time the “hard-working part”
of the team acquired a higher sense of responsibility in engaging their
teammates, who probably wanted (and needed) to be a bit more stimulated and
supported in their learning journey.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">In some cases, this sense of responsibility
took some particularly capable and mature student to play a mentoring role
towards the kids who showed some learning difficulties, naturally nudged by the
framework to practice “cooperative learning” and “learning by doing”. </span><br />
<span lang="EN-US">In a
wonderful <a href="https://youtu.be/J1gfeSzqB4c"><span style="color: #1155cc;">talk</span></a>
to a group of young students, Simon Sinek says: “Learn by practicing helping
each other. It will be the most valuable thing you ever learned in your entire
life”. And this was exactly what our kids were experimenting.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">The fact that no one was a formally
recognized leader, nor could ever be, put a stop to some usually strong
leaderships, who used to dominate the class. This boosted instead who more
often preferred to follow others. Interpersonal dynamics enjoyed great benefits
during the journey, especially due to the need for the team members to
necessarily achieve some form of group consensus, in order to move forward and
progress in the work.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">As the northern regions were inserted into
the map and started to connect with each other, a discrepancy in the quality of
the work among the different teams and few integration issues became obvious. </span><br />
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span>
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<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span>
<span lang="EN-US">For instance, the coloring looked in-homogeneous, while rivers crossing over
multiple regions flew incongruently. It was so visible, that the kids realized
that they needed to collaborate across teams, especially to define the borders
between different regions and to agree on the execution of common areas to
multiple regions. They also co-created a common Definition of Done.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">This contributed greatly to improve the
work execution and the general quality of the unique product (the big map of
Italy) that all teams realized they had to collaborate to produce: the power of fast
feedback loops and early integration :)<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">At the end of the school year, the last
region to complete was Campania, their home region. In that specific case the
backlog item was divided into smaller chunks (five provinces) to allow all
teams to collaborate, but still keep their own Sprint backlog.</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Both half-way and at the end of the year,
all parents were invited to the Sprint Review to experience first-hand what
their children were doing and learning. The reactions were enthusiast to say
the least: they said that their kids were telling them what they did at school, but
seeing them in action in a fully autonomous and self-organized way was a source
of great satisfaction for them. </span><br />
<span lang="EN-US">In both cases the day ended with a celebration
in the classroom, where the whole group could taste delicious food and cakes which
the kids and their parents had prepared at home and brought to school.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<h2>
<span lang="EN-US">Results<o:p></o:p></span></h2>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">We analyzed the results of the experiment
through collection of both subjective and objective data.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">First we asked kids and their parents
to fill in a multiple choices questionnaire to evaluate the experience compared
to a similar course they had to study in the previous years.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">The idea was to look at what happened from
the perspective of the students and the perception of their parents.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Here is the list of questions we proposed:<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Since I started using Scrum and compared to
the geography class during last school year:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<ol start="1" style="margin-top: 0cm;" type="1">
<li class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span lang="EN-US">I learned much less/less/about the same/more/much more<o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span lang="EN-US">I understood the task the teacher was asking me to do much
less/less/about the same/more/much more<o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span lang="EN-US">I had fun much less/less/about the same/more/much more<o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span lang="EN-US">I felt motivated much less/less/about the same/more/much more<o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span lang="EN-US">I collaborated with others much less/less/about the
same/more/much more<o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span lang="EN-US">I felt autonomous much less/less/about the same/more/much more<o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span lang="EN-US">I organized my work much less/less/about the same/more/much
more<o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span lang="EN-US">I feel satisfied of what I have achieved much less/less/about
the same/more/much more<o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span lang="EN-US">If it was solely up to you to decide, would you continue using
Scrum at school? Definitely No/No/Doesn’t matter/Yes/Definitely Yes<o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span lang="EN-US">Would you suggest Scrum to your friends inside or outside your
school? Definitely No/No/Doesn’t matter/Yes/Definitely Yes<o:p></o:p></span></li>
</ol>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">The questionnaire for the parents contained
the same questions: we just replaced “I” with “My child”.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">The results were astonishing.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span>
<span lang="EN-US">More than 84% of the kids' answers were positive, including all the answers reporting "More" or "Much more", "Yes" or "Definitely yes" in the definition of "positive". The rest were basically neutral answers with less than 2% of the answers being negative.</span><br />
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span>
<span lang="EN-US">The parents' evaluation was even more positive: 95% of the answers were positive and absolutely none was negative.</span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: windowtext;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">In particular below are charts showing the
percentage of the answers for the different statements in the questionnaire for
the students and their parents.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-i6GT1eqYSl4/WcpOiw3gigI/AAAAAAAACNc/LIKHinZL5_4XzkrufF6wHDN2fYRq_eHGgCLcBGAs/s1600/ScrumSurveyKids1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="979" data-original-width="1299" height="482" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-i6GT1eqYSl4/WcpOiw3gigI/AAAAAAAACNc/LIKHinZL5_4XzkrufF6wHDN2fYRq_eHGgCLcBGAs/s640/ScrumSurveyKids1.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Answers from kids</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-1v6y0H1-WU0/WcpOuYVkMZI/AAAAAAAACNg/KunveJ2zZlsttA88f6hQzN0J-ZhyoV4IACLcBGAs/s1600/ScrumSurveyKids2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="570" data-original-width="764" height="297" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-1v6y0H1-WU0/WcpOuYVkMZI/AAAAAAAACNg/KunveJ2zZlsttA88f6hQzN0J-ZhyoV4IACLcBGAs/s400/ScrumSurveyKids2.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Answers from kids</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Answers from parents</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Answers from parents</td></tr>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">The objective evaluation includes the
proficiency the different kids achieved in a variety of skills and disciplines analyzed from the teacher perspectives.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US">The data emerged at the end of the project are reported in the table below and are classified in different areas, to make them easier to read.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<table border="1" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="MsoNormalTable" style="border-collapse: collapse; border: none; margin-left: 5.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid black 1.0pt; mso-border-insideh: 1.0pt solid black; mso-border-insidev: 1.0pt solid black; mso-padding-alt: 0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-table-layout-alt: fixed; mso-yfti-tbllook: 1536; width: 638px;">
<tbody>
<tr style="height: 184.85pt; mso-yfti-firstrow: yes; mso-yfti-irow: 0;">
<td style="border: solid black 1.0pt; height: 184.85pt; padding: 5.0pt 5.0pt 5.0pt 5.0pt; width: 6.0cm;" valign="top" width="284"><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-pagination: none; text-align: center;">
Relationships and Social skills</div>
</td>
<td style="border-left: none; border: solid black 1.0pt; height: 184.85pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid black 1.0pt; padding: 5.0pt 5.0pt 5.0pt 5.0pt; width: 212.65pt;" valign="top" width="354"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-pagination: none;">
<span lang="EN-US">Before the project, the class group had already a
good level of social and relational skills, but there was a certain tendency
to privilege some friendly relationships compared to others, which were kind
of less “desired”.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-pagination: none;">
<span lang="EN-US">The need to involve and get
consensus from others, with no chance to “impose” any decision, has clearly
sharpened the relational skills of every student, both those who are more
naturally inclined to lead and those who are more kind of “followers”.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-pagination: none;">
<span lang="EN-US">The former ones had to learn how
to articulate their ideas more effectively, the latter ones got finally the
chance to dissent and propose, although still with hesitance, alternative
suggestions. And everything happened in a more and more collaborative
and fun environment as the time went by.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="border-top: none; border: solid black 1.0pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid black 1.0pt; padding: 5.0pt 5.0pt 5.0pt 5.0pt; width: 6.0cm;" valign="top" width="284"><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-pagination: none; text-align: center;">
Respect of ground rules</div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid black 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid black 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-left-alt: solid black 1.0pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid black 1.0pt; padding: 5.0pt 5.0pt 5.0pt 5.0pt; width: 212.65pt;" valign="top" width="354"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-pagination: none;">
<span lang="EN-US">The framework gave structure and a
feeling of rhythm and cadence to the work. This made the rules of the game
more visible, more effective and thus easier to follow, with a direct
consequence on the kids’ ability to respect ground rules about living at
school and outside the school.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="border-top: none; border: solid black 1.0pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid black 1.0pt; padding: 5.0pt 5.0pt 5.0pt 5.0pt; width: 6.0cm;" valign="top" width="284"><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-pagination: none; text-align: center;">
Personal interest</div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid black 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid black 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-left-alt: solid black 1.0pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid black 1.0pt; padding: 5.0pt 5.0pt 5.0pt 5.0pt; width: 212.65pt;" valign="top" width="354"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-pagination: none;">
<span lang="EN-US">The interest of the kids into all
activities and consequently into the studied discipline was very high
throughout the whole experiment. This gets even more relevance if analyzed in
comparison with the same discipline studied in the previous school year. </span>The clarity of the expected
outcome and the enablers in the framework gave the possibility to constantly
reflect on strengths and improvement areas and directly act on them both on
individual and team level. As a consequence the level of ownership was always
pretty high.</div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="border-top: none; border: solid black 1.0pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid black 1.0pt; padding: 5.0pt 5.0pt 5.0pt 5.0pt; width: 6.0cm;" valign="top" width="284"><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-pagination: none; text-align: center;">
Motivation</div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid black 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid black 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-left-alt: solid black 1.0pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid black 1.0pt; padding: 5.0pt 5.0pt 5.0pt 5.0pt; width: 212.65pt;" valign="top" width="354"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-pagination: none;">
<span lang="EN-US">Capturing attention and stimulating motivation is usually pretty hard with a subject like geography at a primary
school.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-pagination: none;">
<span lang="EN-US">Differently from last year and
from former professional experiences the teacher had with grade 5 students, there was no need
to motivate kids to learn </span>this time. They just showed so much drive towards their goal and how to reach it in the best possible way, that no additional motivator
was necessary.</div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="border-top: none; border: solid black 1.0pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid black 1.0pt; padding: 5.0pt 5.0pt 5.0pt 5.0pt; width: 6.0cm;" valign="top" width="284"><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-pagination: none; text-align: center;">
Engagement</div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid black 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid black 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-left-alt: solid black 1.0pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid black 1.0pt; padding: 5.0pt 5.0pt 5.0pt 5.0pt; width: 212.65pt;" valign="top" width="354"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-pagination: none;">
<span lang="EN-US">The participation to the class
activities was very high. The major educational success of this activity was
determined by the high level of engagement, especially of those who were
more prone to lose focus and used to participate less.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-pagination: none;">
<span lang="EN-US">The proposed project looked just
like a technical and graphical activity, but in reality required an accurate
study of the discipline, which the kids accomplished without even realizing it. The
strive to achieve the final result pushed them to research as much
information as possible, in order to deliver a quality product (the map)
which was easy to understand also for the classmates, who had not studied the
specific region.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="border-top: none; border: solid black 1.0pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid black 1.0pt; padding: 5.0pt 5.0pt 5.0pt 5.0pt; width: 6.0cm;" valign="top" width="284"><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-pagination: none; text-align: center;">
Commitment</div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid black 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid black 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-left-alt: solid black 1.0pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid black 1.0pt; padding: 5.0pt 5.0pt 5.0pt 5.0pt; width: 212.65pt;" valign="top" width="354"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-pagination: none;">
<span lang="EN-US">The level of commitment was simply
a result of motivation and engagement, so obviously the results were very
positive. The students who were used to achieve outstanding results, simply
excelled in the project. But most important, the kids who were used to
struggle to achieve a sufficient grade, reached educational results far above
their average, also thanks to the support and help from their teammates.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="border-top: none; border: solid black 1.0pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid black 1.0pt; padding: 5.0pt 5.0pt 5.0pt 5.0pt; width: 6.0cm;" valign="top" width="284"><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-pagination: none; text-align: center;">
Planning and time management</div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid black 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid black 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-left-alt: solid black 1.0pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid black 1.0pt; padding: 5.0pt 5.0pt 5.0pt 5.0pt; width: 212.65pt;" valign="top" width="354"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-pagination: none;">
<span lang="EN-US">One of the biggest outcomes of
this project was the improvement in terms of ability to plan the work
and time management: at the end of the year all the students reached an outstanding
level of autonomy and self-organization.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-pagination: none;">
<span lang="EN-US">Even the kids, who had more
troubles in finding an effective time management approach, had the chance to
catch up thanks to the intrinsic focus and the teamwork.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="border-top: none; border: solid black 1.0pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid black 1.0pt; padding: 5.0pt 5.0pt 5.0pt 5.0pt; width: 6.0cm;" valign="top" width="284"><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-pagination: none; text-align: center;">
Competence level</div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid black 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid black 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-left-alt: solid black 1.0pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid black 1.0pt; padding: 5.0pt 5.0pt 5.0pt 5.0pt; width: 212.65pt;" valign="top" width="354"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-pagination: none;">
<span lang="EN-US">The class group which experimented
this project had already pretty high average level of proficiency and grades.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-pagination: none;">
<span lang="EN-US">However the multiple elements, emerging from the project, contributed to determine a generally much
more positive grade compared to the results achieved by the same students in
previous school years.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-pagination: none;">
<span lang="EN-US">It is interesting to highlight that the
results achieved have been even more positive for the students who had already outstanding
grades.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-pagination: none;">
<span lang="EN-US">Those who had good grades accomplished
remarkable improvements, with a greater awareness of their own abilities.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-pagination: none;">
<span lang="EN-US">Those who barely reached a
sufficient grade had numerically better grades, but the fundamental outcome of
this experiment was an actual acquisition of new competences from all kids.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-pagination: none;">
<span lang="EN-US">Those competences include the ones
that in the <i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><a href="https://publications.europa.eu/en/publication-detail/-/publication/8722c9fb-71da-435f-94b6-33aab67eb081/language-en">European Commission White paper “Teaching andlearning: Towards the Learning Society”</a> </span></i>are denoted as: the <b>Know-how</b> (<i>skills</i>), the <b>Know-how-to-be</b> (<i>attitudes</i>),
the <b>Knowledge</b>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-pagination: none;">
<span lang="EN-US">These are the goals to purse at
school: the students must acquire <b>Knowledge</b>
(Rome is the capital city of Italy; Monte Bianco is on the Alps, etc.), but
they have to acquire also, and much more than the mere knowledge, the <b>Know-How</b> (<i>logical skills, intuitive skills, linguistic skills</i>, etc.) and the
right <b>Know-how-to-be</b>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span lang="EN-US">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Actually the most important task of the school nowadays should be to help kids <b>learn how to learn</b>, so that they can keep learning for the rest of
their life and the applied methodology seemed to support very much this
direction.</span></span></div>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody></table>
</div>
<br />
<span lang="EN-US"></span>
<h2>
<span lang="EN-US">Conclusion<o:p></o:p></span></h2>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">The experiment tried to give an answer to
following questions.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><i>Can Scrum used in education support to
create a learning experience for kids which would encompass the following?</i><o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US"></span><br />
<ul>
<li><span lang="EN-US" style="text-indent: -18pt;">Being more adaptable to a kid’s specific learning needs</span></li>
<li>Being a meaningful experience involving feelings and physical emotions</li>
<li><span lang="EN-US" style="text-indent: -18pt;">Fostering self-development and co-education</span></li>
<li>Training skills which are crucial in the 21st century and the school is traditionally not that good at teaching, e.g.</li>
<ul>
<li>self-organization</li>
<li>leadership</li>
<li>ability to plan</li>
<li>imagination</li>
<li>self-reflection</li>
<li>dealing with uncertainties and the unknown</li>
</ul>
</ul>
<i style="text-indent: -18pt;">Can this work in the context of a primary
school in the South Italy?</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">The empirical evidence of what happened
during the experience (including the observation of the behaviors naturally
nudged by the adoption of the Scrum framework) as well the collected results,
encourage a positive answer to these questions and validate the assumption that
Scrum is a powerful change engine in many different contexts.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Default">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Scrum is founded on empirical process control theory, which asserts that
knowledge comes from experience and<i>
</i>making decisions based on what is known. Scrum employs an iterative,
incremental approach to optimize chances of success when addressing a complex
problem, a problem where solution is unknown or multi-faceted, including
learning something new.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Default">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Empirical process control has three pillars:
transparency, inspection, and adaptation. When you manage to create an
environment where the values of <b>commitment,
courage, focus, openness and respect</b> are embodied and lived by the Team,
the Scrum pillars of transparency, inspection, and adaptation come to life and
build trust for everyone. Then people, whether kids or adults, are capable to
learn and explore as they work with Scrum.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">On top of that, the students could engage
with their classmates and their teacher in a much more human and profound way
and live an experience they will probably remember forever and tell to their
grandchildren.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">And that’s what made this experience
mostly rewarding for my brother and me!<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-kzqL1rG7mbI/WcpRGdgW7CI/AAAAAAAACN0/pLvrOJavaMseMTzseL0TLA0eX-cFw9l5wCLcBGAs/s1600/20170401_101536.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="225" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-kzqL1rG7mbI/WcpRGdgW7CI/AAAAAAAACN0/pLvrOJavaMseMTzseL0TLA0eX-cFw9l5wCLcBGAs/s400/20170401_101536.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Happy Scrum students with their teacher :)</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span>
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11536310861961046111noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4183261328767912610.post-78761145708920588592017-09-08T10:11:00.002+02:002017-10-02T17:49:54.508+02:00Agile Education at a primary school in Italy - Part 1<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-lFxD5a31rQ0/WbFIJapiS4I/AAAAAAAACME/ECmrCPQg378O5k2D8_l3pO3Ue88UwaBfACLcBGAs/s1600/9984463.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="476" data-original-width="469" height="320" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-lFxD5a31rQ0/WbFIJapiS4I/AAAAAAAACME/ECmrCPQg378O5k2D8_l3pO3Ue88UwaBfACLcBGAs/s320/9984463.png" width="313" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Agile In Education Compass - designed by Stuart Young (Radtac)</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "sintony" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.6px; font-weight: bold; letter-spacing: 0.28px; word-spacing: 1.4px;"> </span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US">My brother Marco is a primary school teacher in Italy.</span> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">From this
perspective we share a common interest, since I am a trainer and I am
interested in how people learn. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">I’ve been actually interested in that for more
than 25 years: as a Scout leader it has been very clear for me that educating boys and girls is giving them the
opportunity to learn and become the best they can be.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">It is not
by chance that the verb “to educate” comes from the Latin “ex ducere”, which
literally means “to lead out” what a person already potentially is.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Last year
we happened to talk about how to create a learning experience for primary
school kids which would encompass the following:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="mso-list: l5 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
</div>
<ul>
<li><span lang="EN-US" style="text-indent: -18pt;">Being
more adaptable to a kid’s specific learning needs</span></li>
<li>Being
a meaningful experience involving feelings and physical emotions</li>
<li><span lang="EN-US" style="text-indent: -18pt;">Fostering
self-development and co-education</span></li>
<li>Training
skills which are crucial in the 21st century and the school is traditionally not that good at teaching, e.g.</li>
<ul>
<li>self-organization</li>
<li>leadership</li>
<li>ability to plan</li>
<li>imagination</li>
<li>self-reflection</li>
<li>dealing with uncertainties and the unknown</li>
</ul>
</ul>
As an Agile
coach and trainer, all these things resonated a lot with me as they sounded like
the skills of true "agilistas" or the characteristic of an awesome Agile team.<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">On the
other side, I was aware of the many experiences in the field of Agile in
Education, which are summarized on the website </span><a href="http://www.agileineducation.org/"><span lang="EN-US">agileineducation.org</span></a><span lang="EN-US"> and conceptualized through the Agile Education compass created by a
group of Agile educators at the Scrum Gathering in Orlando in April 2016.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">So the
proposal was kind of natural: why not trying a learning experience based on
Agile values and principles? Learning and using the Scrum framework looked to
me the simplest and most straightforward option to help the kids practice
agility at school.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">The very
first step was actually to educate Marco in Scrum: I led him through an
introductory session to the Agile manifesto, Scrum and its foundation,
including Empirical Process Control.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">This was
enough in catching him up in the idea: the confidence in his older brother did
the rest in accumulating enough enthusiasm and motivation to get going with the
whole experiment </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "wingdings"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-char-type: symbol; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-symbol-font-family: Wingdings;">J</span><span lang="EN-US"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "wingdings"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-char-type: symbol; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-symbol-font-family: Wingdings;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Basically
we wanted to have a first-hand validation that applying Scrum in a primary
school class is doable, kids enjoy it, they can learn faster and practice
skills they normally do not in a traditional classroom environment.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Below I
will describe the whole concept we adopted, how we structured it, a report of
the different phases and some final results we achieved (I will actually split the whole story over a couple of posts to make each post reasonably short).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<h2>
<span lang="EN-US">Selecting the project<o:p></o:p></span></h2>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">The first
problem to solve was to pick a learning project which was suitable for the
experiment. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">It should
have been challenging enough to get a meaningful result out of it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">At the same
time it should have been concrete enough, so that the kids could actually
produce something tangible (iteratively and incrementally) and see the outcome
of their work.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">There is no Scrum team without a product</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "wingdings"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-char-type: symbol; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-symbol-font-family: Wingdings;">J</span><span lang="EN-US">.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">The class
consisted of 19 kids: considering the recommended size of a Scrum team between
3-9 people, the selected learning project should have been suitable to work in
multi-team environment. Multiple Scrum teams had to work in parallel on the
same product and get success by collaborating and integrating their work,
hopefully at each and every iteration.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">The natural
choice emerged to be an interdisciplinary geography project, including learning
objectives in arts (mainly image), math (mainly statistics) and humanities. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Students in
the 5<sup>th</sup> grade are supposed to study the whole Italy and specifically
each of the different 20 regions which form the country. This looked very
promising for creating a backlog of multiple items, which many teams could work
on at the same time: each Product Backlog Item would have been
one of the 20 regions.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<h2>
<span lang="EN-US">Kick-off<o:p></o:p></span></h2>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">The whole
experiment started in the first week of November 2016.</span><br />
In a previous meeting, Marco had informed all parents about the trial which would have involved their children during the year. He explained them the idea and the rationale and all of them showed curiosity and agreed to move on, based also on the trust they had in the teacher.<br />
<span lang="EN-US">The kids were also prepared. They were informed that this year they would have studied geography in a different way: they got full of enthusiasm but also expectations.</span><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Whenever I kick-off
one or multiple Scrum teams, I basically help them learn three things:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<ol>
<li>Know
about the Process</li>
<li>Know
about the Product</li>
<li>Know
about each other</li>
</ol>
So, we
reserved one full school day to achieve the following results:<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<ul>
<li>Deliver
an introductory training on Agile and Scrum to all students</li>
<li>Create
and kick-start the different teams</li>
<li>Getting
the teams acquainted with the backlog</li>
<li>Hold
the first Sprint Planning</li>
</ul>
<br />
Marco introduced the day and then we had a 2-hours interactive training so that the
kids could understand:<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<ul>
<li>What
is the most suitable approach to solving complex problems, like learning
something new</li>
<li>The Agile
values and principles'</li>
<li>The Scrum
roles, events and artifacts</li>
</ul>
The day
could have not been started better than by trying the <a href="https://www.tomwujec.com/design-projects/marshmallow-challenge/">Marshmallow Challenge</a> and
learn the beauty and effectiveness of “prototype and refine” and why it works
better than planning upfront and just following the plan, when an individual or
a team faces something they have never tried before.<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">It was just amazing
how they immediately grasped this and made all sense to them.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-juDweIiH6RQ/WbFFTQqeQ1I/AAAAAAAACLs/Xk6Sr-x5gjg2MvOqs8oRd7hKHVv9IHjCwCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_2633.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-juDweIiH6RQ/WbFFTQqeQ1I/AAAAAAAACLs/Xk6Sr-x5gjg2MvOqs8oRd7hKHVv9IHjCwCLcBGAs/s400/IMG_2633.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-TEK-nBpsY8A/WbFWNtysn3I/AAAAAAAACMU/j0ME2nvzJnoTgddgqW9PQfU4qfQzUF0oQCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_0999.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1600" height="225" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-TEK-nBpsY8A/WbFWNtysn3I/AAAAAAAACMU/j0ME2nvzJnoTgddgqW9PQfU4qfQzUF0oQCLcBGAs/s400/IMG_0999.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">At the end
of the 2 hours they could explain what a Product Owner or a Sprint is.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">After a
short break we moved to their actual classroom where my brother had prepared
all the necessary supply I had
instructed him to buy to facilitate the day and the team work.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">So we started
presenting the backlog. To make the final product visual, Marco prepared a
big blank map of Italy, just reporting the borders of the different regions
(see the draft picture below).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-FVwadjxSmSA/WbFAT8AbG6I/AAAAAAAACLc/gSvDSylZUp4qUi8zHxX8olnDerQiKMd0QCLcBGAs/s1600/2017-08-11-PHOTO-00002836.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1300" data-original-width="1147" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-FVwadjxSmSA/WbFAT8AbG6I/AAAAAAAACLc/gSvDSylZUp4qUi8zHxX8olnDerQiKMd0QCLcBGAs/s320/2017-08-11-PHOTO-00002836.jpg" width="280" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Each
backlog item (i.e. representing each of the 20 Italian regions) had to fulfill the
following Acceptance Criteria.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<ul><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-rXYojbiBb60/WbJO_uapFrI/AAAAAAAACM0/UahyY0Cpb8QHtn7PYSIJpA-3d77KV1MQwCLcBGAs/s1600/Region.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="237" data-original-width="457" height="102" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-rXYojbiBb60/WbJO_uapFrI/AAAAAAAACM0/UahyY0Cpb8QHtn7PYSIJpA-3d77KV1MQwCLcBGAs/s200/Region.jpg" width="200" /></a>
<li>A
construction paper shape of the region must be prepared:</li>
<ul>
<li><span lang="EN-US" style="text-indent: -18pt;">Borders
must conform to the map</span></li>
<li><span lang="EN-US" style="text-indent: -18pt;">High
and low grounds are represented</span></li>
<li>Hydrography
is represented</li>
<li><span lang="EN-US" style="text-indent: -18pt;">Cities
are positioned properly and regional/provincial capitals highlighted</span></li>
<li>Different
sectors of local economy are represented<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></li>
<li><span lang="EN-US" style="text-indent: -18pt;">Peculiarities
of the region are highlighted</span></li>
</ul>
<li> <span lang="EN-US" style="text-indent: -18pt;">A
report on the whole region must be prepared and shared by the team with the
whole class</span></li>
</ul>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">In that way
the kids had something concrete to produce and an underlying architecture which
made integration easy. At the same time the different teams could work
independently.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Then we
moved to form the Scrum teams: with a class of 19 kids we decided to split them
in three teams. The teacher would have the role of Product Owner and I
would formally act as a Scrum Master for all teams.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">However I
knew that I could not be present so I instructed my brother that he
should work as a facilitator as well and take actually care of the
Scrum Mastering part, while I would have coached and consulted him remotely along the
way.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">During the
preparation phase we evaluated whether it would be a good idea to
let the kids self-organize in three teams by following a certain number of
constraints, but we discarded the option. Marco did not feel too
comfortable and he wanted to make sure that the groups had enough diversity
from many perspectives, including different learning styles and proficiency at
school, which probably the kids would have not been able to take into the right
consideration themselves.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">So we
proceeded with the splitting: the first empirical evidence was that they did
not look surprised at all about how their teacher split them up and no one
complained. This might mean either that the split made sense to them or they
simply did not care or did not dare to speak out about their teacher’s
decision. Having interacted with the kids and having seen the teacher-students relationship
in the class, the first option looked more plausible to me.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Then we
gave time to the different teams to select a team name and logo and enjoy some
practical activity to create their task boards, pick a corner in the classroom
space, hang the whiteboard on the wall and craft their own team space.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-U1ydlFADev8/WbJNpInHiUI/AAAAAAAACMo/CB9zd48-k7w-y1BTu6W0nT-z5kP_OoN1gCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_1002.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1600" height="225" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-U1ydlFADev8/WbJNpInHiUI/AAAAAAAACMo/CB9zd48-k7w-y1BTu6W0nT-z5kP_OoN1gCLcBGAs/s400/IMG_1002.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">The next
step was to stipulate an agreement on our routines.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">When it
comes to decide the Sprint length and day/time for the different events, we had
some constraints:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<ul>
<li>Marco works only 4 days a week in that class (school week in Italy is 6 days)</li>
<li>We
wanted the kids to work on the project mainly at school, not at home, so that
we could observe and facilitate team dynamics</li>
<li>I
had mainly Friday and Saturday available to join them remotely over Skype</li>
</ul>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">The
agreement came pretty constrained:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<ul>
<li>Sprint
length: 3 weeks</li>
<li><span lang="EN-US" style="text-indent: -18pt;">Sprint
Planning: Saturday mornings</span></li>
<li><span lang="EN-US" style="text-indent: -18pt;">Sprint
Review and Retrospective: Friday after lunch</span></li>
<li>Daily
Scrum: 8.45 in the morning (but 4 times a week,
when my brother was in the class)</li>
</ul>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">The
different teams worked on drafting their own team ground rules on a flip-chart,
which they then hung in their team space.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Last step
before moving to Sprint Planning was to draft the first version of Definition
of Done, which I renamed with the slogan “We will have done a good job, if…” to
translate in a more suitable language for 5<sup>th</sup> graders </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "wingdings"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-char-type: symbol; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-symbol-font-family: Wingdings;">J</span><span lang="EN-US"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "wingdings"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-char-type: symbol; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-symbol-font-family: Wingdings;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-wjU8t-g4NtE/WbJNdl3tQKI/AAAAAAAACMk/Wto8Kya_JGIEvxPtNXTvmuB9NhDAVP4NQCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_1001.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1600" height="225" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-wjU8t-g4NtE/WbJNdl3tQKI/AAAAAAAACMk/Wto8Kya_JGIEvxPtNXTvmuB9NhDAVP4NQCLcBGAs/s400/IMG_1001.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "wingdings"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-char-type: symbol; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-symbol-font-family: Wingdings;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="border-bottom: dotted windowtext 3.0pt; border: none; mso-element: para-border-div; padding: 0cm 0cm 1.0pt 0cm;">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; mso-border-bottom-alt: dotted windowtext 3.0pt; mso-padding-alt: 0cm 0cm 1.0pt 0cm; padding: 0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US">Here below is a picture of how one of the
team’s corner looked like at the time they were building it the first day.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; mso-border-bottom-alt: dotted windowtext 3.0pt; mso-padding-alt: 0cm 0cm 1.0pt 0cm; padding: 0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-h9BFrVRnN-w/WbFGeJyR0fI/AAAAAAAACL0/g4DoI9n7RPA4rNKRCKd4edAwl9dz9-PUACLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_0014.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="747" data-original-width="1328" height="225" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-h9BFrVRnN-w/WbFGeJyR0fI/AAAAAAAACL0/g4DoI9n7RPA4rNKRCKd4edAwl9dz9-PUACLcBGAs/s400/IMG_0014.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
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We had
finally everything ready to get going with the first Sprint Planning.</div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">My brother explained
the first few backlog items on top of the backlog, re-read and clarified the
Acceptance Criteria. He mentioned more than once that each team could pull any
backlog item they wanted in the order they were presented, but if they felt
that one item was too much to get done in 3 weeks, he was available to discuss
possible ways to split the work in smaller chunks.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">No team actually considered this as necessary and on the other side no team believed they could take more than one
region into the Sprint. The whole class collaborated to agree which team pulled
which of the top 3 items in the backlog.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-CmnisSYKsGM/WbFHjUnCB2I/AAAAAAAACL8/ryCFuCbAb2ETPevNtl0-6br_-a4X1BJygCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_0022.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="776" data-original-width="1196" height="258" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-CmnisSYKsGM/WbFHjUnCB2I/AAAAAAAACL8/ryCFuCbAb2ETPevNtl0-6br_-a4X1BJygCLcBGAs/s400/IMG_0022.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">The teams
moved to decide on how the chosen work would get done. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">I instructed them to split
the Backlog items in smaller tasks and the kids even started pulling tasks.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-EsRSbm06xW4/WbJN-KiA-9I/AAAAAAAACMs/oaLPqIqZPdkP6fStgIko2-ThbDXtGLtngCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_1003.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1600" height="225" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-EsRSbm06xW4/WbJN-KiA-9I/AAAAAAAACMs/oaLPqIqZPdkP6fStgIko2-ThbDXtGLtngCLcBGAs/s400/IMG_1003.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Each
student designed a magnet with his/her own avatar and put it close to a
post-it. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">W</span>e encouraged pair working from the very beginning.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">The day
ended with a celebration.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">The kids
were extremely happy and enthusiast. Some of the comments I got from them included:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
<ul>
<li><i>“Will you
stay with us for the whole school year?”</i></li>
<li><i>“I usually
have troubles in following, but today I understood everything”</i></li>
<li><i>“We love
you!”</i> (This obviously moved me to tears!)</li>
</ul>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">It looked
like we were on a good track and had managed to create the right foundations
for the experiment to give the expected results.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-83Re7ImVpOg/WbJQZVIX0gI/AAAAAAAACM8/U0Iy5y5P1Uc770y5eL20R2Y_OEwBoQF2ACLcBGAs/s1600/Celebration.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="593" data-original-width="1153" height="205" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-83Re7ImVpOg/WbJQZVIX0gI/AAAAAAAACM8/U0Iy5y5P1Uc770y5eL20R2Y_OEwBoQF2ACLcBGAs/s400/Celebration.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Side note:
the day after, I met the mother of one of the kids, which is a dear friend and
an ex-school mate of mine. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">She stopped me and asked:<i> “What the heck did you do
at school yesterday? My son came back so enthusiast like I have never seen him
before after a school day!”</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">I was in a
hurry: I simply smiled, hugged her and left. This event triggered the idea to involve the
parents as much as possible moving forward in the experience.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><i>Stay tuned for the continuation of the story in a coming post!</i></span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11536310861961046111noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4183261328767912610.post-39472957420706429102017-07-03T17:26:00.001+02:002017-07-03T17:53:18.950+02:003 signs your daily Scrum sucks (and how to cure them)<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; tab-stops: right lined 504.0pt;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://www.scrumalliance.org/scrum/media/ScrumAllianceMedia/PageGraphics/ScrumExplained-4-620.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="287" data-original-width="620" height="185" src="https://www.scrumalliance.org/scrum/media/ScrumAllianceMedia/PageGraphics/ScrumExplained-4-620.jpg" width="400"></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><br></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">I</span><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">t is actually a long time I have not written an educational article on Scrum. </span></span><br>
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 11.0pt;">I have recently found some notes from a conversation I had with a community of Scrum Masters few months ago and decided to package them into a blog post. Hope you appreciate it.</span><br>
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 11.0pt;"><br></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">So here are three small and easy to observe signs that you need to fix your Daily Scrum.</span><br>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 11.0pt;"><b>1. People are only
interested in their own tasks.<o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; tab-stops: right lined 504.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 11.0pt;">I found that this
behavior is also pretty encouraged by the common way of running the Daily
Scrum, i.e. the famous three questions. I found many times that people normally
follow with attention until it is their turn to speak; they simply disconnect
after that.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; tab-stops: right lined 504.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 11.0pt;">When I see this, I
normally propose the team to try a different way of handling the stand-up. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; tab-stops: right lined 504.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 11.0pt;">One way that works is
to keep the same 3 questions, but have 3 rounds instead of one, with each person answering only one question at a time. </span><br>
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 11.0pt;">This usually gives two benefits. </span><br>
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 11.0pt;">The
first of course is to keep people actively engaged until the end, since they
know they will have to speak again. </span><br>
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 11.0pt;">But there’s a more important one. It serves
better the real purpose of the Daily Scrum of collectively assessing where the
team is compared to the Sprint goal and collaboratively deciding what the next
most important task is for each team member to complete, in order to move closer
to the Sprint goal. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; tab-stops: right lined 504.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 11.0pt;">Another way (which brings
even more benefits in my experience) is to run the stand-up not focusing on
people’s tasks, but on User Stories. </span><br>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">The idea is that the team takes one User Story at a time from
the top and discuss about how to make it “done done” as soon as possible. Then
you take the next and move on, either until you covered all the opened stories
or until the 15-minutes time is up. In that way team members do not focus on the
individual tasks, but more directly look at the Sprint goal as a collective
goal to achieve. Sometimes you do not manage to talk about lower priority
stories, so people who are working on those feel a bit excluded </span><span style="font-family: Wingdings; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-char-type: symbol; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial; mso-symbol-font-family: Wingdings;">J</span><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">.
That provides some social pressure to
contribute to complete the highest priority stories first, instead of minding
their own tasks.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; tab-stops: right lined 504.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 11.0pt;"><b>2. Everybody is looking
at the Scrum Master instead of at each other <o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; tab-stops: right lined 504.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 11.0pt;">Sometimes it feels
more like a status report. So I use the trick to encourage them to stay in
circle, closer to the task board, and I take (or ask the Scrum Master to take)
a step back, pretending I’m taking notes. I avoid looking at them in the eyes,
so that they feel a bit uncomfortable and they are forced to find other eyes to
look into: their team mate’s eyes. It works immediately most times.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; tab-stops: right lined 504.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 11.0pt;">I use the same trick
also when they tend to look at their manager attending the Daily Scrum: I
encourage them to stay in circle, leaving all other attendees outside.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; tab-stops: right lined 504.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 11.0pt;"><b>3. People tend to
have long discussions, trying to fix problems during the stand-up <o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; tab-stops: right lined 504.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 11.0pt;">I know that many
Scrum Masters tend to interrupt discussions or ask people to continue
discussion outside the meeting. This works some times, but many times I found
that a bit irritating. I try to use and teach a different approach.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; tab-stops: right lined 504.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 11.0pt;">I normally try to
explain at the beginning very clearly to the team that the Daily Scrum is
intended for the Daily Planning, so that everybody understands and buy into this .
So, when I see that a discussion is going on, I leave room for a couple of
minute. If it is not concluded yet, I ask a question like: How do you think
this can affect today’s planning? Most times people admit that it is not
strictly relevant and propose to park it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; tab-stops: right lined 504.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 11.0pt;">On top of that, in
order to have the team really self-organize, because it is everyone’s
responsibility to keep the time of the Daily Scrum, I always use a timer (a
digital one or a “pomodoro”) to visualize the time passing and signal when it
is up, so that the Scrum Master does not act as the bad time-keeper guy.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">Of course the three above and other dysfunctions might
be just a symptom of something deeper. </span><br>
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">If the techniques illustrated above do
not work, it can be a smell of something more important that must be addressed.</span><br>
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><br></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">What are the dysfunctions in your Daily Scrum?</span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11536310861961046111noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4183261328767912610.post-7730262115042821172017-05-20T09:23:00.001+02:002017-05-20T09:23:59.550+02:00The 21st century´s paradigm to connect people and work to be done<div class="MsoNormal">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-8bTg954nA3o/WR7EsfMDy6I/AAAAAAAACHo/6cwUciuvBFc-hre7R7uXLj95rdV-PwUcACLcB/s1600/work%2Bin%2Bprogress.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="265" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-8bTg954nA3o/WR7EsfMDy6I/AAAAAAAACHo/6cwUciuvBFc-hre7R7uXLj95rdV-PwUcACLcB/s400/work%2Bin%2Bprogress.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<span lang="EN-US">Few days
ago I had a phone call with a friend of mine. During our conversation she shared with me one of the challenges she is
facing at work and wanted to check what I might think about.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Basically
they have few issues when it comes to allocating people to work on a project
they sold to a customer.<br />
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span>
<span lang="EN-US">The challenges are multi-faceted:</span><span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; text-indent: -18pt;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<ul>
<li>Finding
people with the competences which fit that specific project</li>
<li>Finding
people who are available to work on that project</li>
<li>Finding
people who are willing to work on that specific project</li>
</ul>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Now the
sweet point would be: a reasonable amount of people with the right competences,
who are available at that time and willing to take on the project.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Very hard!
Almost impossible! So what is usually the second best option?<o:p></o:p></span><br />
Right! Put together
on the project just who is available at that moment in time and hope it will
not turn out too bad until someone with the right expertise can join and save
the boat.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Does it
sound familiar? I am sure it does, if we live in the same world.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">But I have
a second question: any guess what my friend’s job is?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Well, if
you are thinking about anything among Project Manager, Development Manager or
SW developer, you got it wrong. </span><br />
<span lang="EN-US">She is an architect: not a SW architect, a “real”
architect.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">If the fact
that an architecture office might have similar problems to any product
development company sounds unexpected to you, you have not considered the fact
that the nature of the work is substantially the same in both fields: solving
new problems which have undefined boundaries and multiple possible solutions
within a complex environment where multiple entities influence each other in
unpredictable ways. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">To me this
is just another confirmation of a pattern that I have seen in all organizations
coping with work of such a nature and trying to apply traditional patterns to
solve this challenge in the current century.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Can the
situation be slightly improved by applying those patterns more efficiently?
Probably yes and the PMI might have few ideas around that.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">However my
experience tells me that the problem cannot be solved if we do not embrace the
fact that a totally different paradigm is needed.</span><br />
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<h4>
<span lang="EN-US">Why?</span></h4>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
</div>
<ul>
<li><span lang="EN-US" style="text-indent: -18pt;">Customer
requests are more and more unclear: they do not know what they want. Problems
are wicked: there is no pre-defined answer</span></li>
<li><span lang="EN-US" style="text-indent: -18pt;">Market
is becoming more volatile: new and unexpected needs are emerging which require
flexibility in companies</span></li>
<li><span lang="EN-US" style="text-indent: -18pt;">Professions
are more and more specialized. Too many individuals I-shaped skills, which
means they have deep knowledge and experience in just one area</span></li>
<li><span lang="EN-US" style="text-indent: -18pt;">Work
is done in silos: lack of holistic view by individuals, but also knowledge
domain in many professions is so big that is impossible for a single person to
know-it-all</span></li>
<li><span lang="EN-US" style="text-indent: -18pt;">Having
parallel projects competing for human resources is not sustainable anymore in
the above context</span></li>
<li><span lang="EN-US" style="text-indent: -18pt;">Having
people working on multiple projects reduces their effectiveness and
productivity: context switching makes people waste time and produces stress,
which can reduce IQ by 20%</span></li>
</ul>
<h4>
So what is
this different paradigm all about?</h4>
<ul>
<li><span lang="EN-US" style="text-indent: -18pt;">Understand
the flow of value you create and setup stable, 100% focused, self-organized
teams with a shared goal around your value flow</span></li>
<li><span lang="EN-US" style="text-indent: -18pt;">Bring
highest value work to teams instead of allocating (or multi-allocating) people
to work</span></li>
<ul>
<li><span lang="EN-US" style="text-indent: -18pt;">Having
the team as the atomic element simplifies allocation very much</span></li>
</ul>
<li><span lang="EN-US" style="text-indent: -18pt;">Focusing
on getting the most important thing out as fast as possible instead of focusing
on making people busy (flow efficiency over resource efficiency)</span></li>
<li><span lang="EN-US" style="text-indent: -18pt;">Teams
must be cross-functional: they must have all the competence needed to get work
done</span></li>
<li><span lang="EN-US" style="text-indent: -18pt;">The
holistic view of the work is kept at team level</span></li>
<ul>
<li><span lang="EN-US" style="text-indent: -18pt;">It
is too much to know for a single person. Individuals should better be “learn-it-all”*</span></li>
<li><span lang="EN-US" style="text-indent: -18pt;">They
can act more effectively on new wicked problems to solve: <a href="https://hbr.org/2007/11/a-leaders-framework-for-decision-making">diversity
beats expertise in complex domains</a></span></li>
</ul>
<li><span lang="EN-US" style="text-indent: -18pt;">Move
from <a href="http://trydesignlab.com/blog/how-to-get-hired-understand-if-youre-an-i-t-or-x-s/">I-shaped
individuals to T-shaped or even X-shaped professional</a> who can do more
things, so that you can have smaller teams with all needed competences</span></li>
<ul>
<li><span lang="EN-US" style="text-indent: -18pt;">This
can be partly achieved through synergies in teams, but also having the expert
teaching to the others, to reduce the bus factor</span></li>
</ul>
</ul>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span>
<span lang="EN-US">Dare to
take the journey? Do you have enough courage to address your own problems?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0px;">
<i><span style="text-indent: -18pt;">*In
her book “Mindset”, Carol Dweck talks about the following concept: if you take
two people, one of them is a learn-it-all and the other one is a know-it-all,
the learn-it-all will always trump the know-it-all in the long run. See also
what Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said in an </span><a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2016-satya-nadella-interview-issue/" style="text-indent: -18pt;">interview</a><span style="text-indent: -18pt;">
last year about his effort to overhaul the company culture.</span></i></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11536310861961046111noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4183261328767912610.post-39444384930016053332016-11-10T11:36:00.002+01:002016-11-10T23:08:11.938+01:00A conversation with the CIO community<div class="MsoNormal">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-WrvTlWI6knU/WCLmbilx9zI/AAAAAAAAB_Q/pMY0XXEYb5ICYiPRuAyD7a1eVQ9aTChkACLcB/s1600/5217160895_7e188b1df7_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="208" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-WrvTlWI6knU/WCLmbilx9zI/AAAAAAAAB_Q/pMY0XXEYb5ICYiPRuAyD7a1eVQ9aTChkACLcB/s320/5217160895_7e188b1df7_o.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , "trebuchet" , "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10.56px; line-height: 14.784px;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/42931449@N07/5217160895">Leadership quote</a> by <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/92799712@N04/" style="color: #888888; text-decoration: none;">p</a>hotosteve01</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , "trebuchet" , "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10.56px; line-height: 14.784px;"> / </span><a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/" style="background-color: white; color: #888888; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10.56px; line-height: 14.784px; text-decoration: none;">CC BY 2.0</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: "century gothic" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Last June I had the pleasure to get my interview published on Netweek, the biggest magazine for the Greek CIO
Community (the Greek IT Managers are both readers and editors). </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "century gothic" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">I am thankful to George Fetokakis, </span><span style="font-family: "century gothic" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Editor-In-Chief of <a href="http://www.netweek.gr/">Netweek </a>to make it possible and for the interesting questions.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "century gothic" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "century gothic" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Since I realized that <a href="http://www.netweek.gr/default.asp?pid=9&la=1&cID=2&arId=32701&ss=de+simone">the interview was only published in Greek</a>, I decided to post it here in English and share it with a bigger community.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "century gothic" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Trust you will find value in it.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "century gothic" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Looking forward to your feedback and comments.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "century gothic" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "century gothic" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt;"><b>1. How did you get started
in the Agile world? <o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">Interesting enough, I actually started my Agile
journey in Greece. At the end of 2009 I got the chance to be part of
kicking-off the Agile transformation in a big development organization of
around 2000 people. So I got to spend 3 months in Patras, together with other
18 apprentice coaches from all over the world and 9 consultants among the most
knowledgeable Agile coaches and trainers at that time. Every single day of
those 3 months was an incredible learning experience and that still remains the
most exciting and fun period in my professional career. Which better place to
start a life-changing journey than the place which gave birth to the Western
culture?<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt;"><br /></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt;"><b>2. What does success mean for you
in this world? <o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">In my opinion success in this context for a company or
an organization means: effectively leveraging on Agile values and principles to
achieve your specific goal </span></i><i><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">sustainably </span></i><i><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">in the fast changing world we are called
to live right now.</span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">For a development team success means delighting your
customer with products that actually solve their problems. For me personally success
means contributing to transforming our world of work in something more meaningful
for human beings.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt;"><br /></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt;"><b>3. What are the top skills
that an effective Agile coach should have?<o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">The two coaching skills which helped me most in my
7-year experience as Agile coach are: empathy and situational awareness. Empathy
is a crucial skill for coaches and leaders.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">I learned that people want to feel themselves valued
and appreciate when someone is truly listening and not judgmental. This doesn´t
come easy: it is a skill to practice to be able to listen for potential, namely
listening to people not for what they are, but for what they can become in the
future and be committed to help them become the best they can be.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">With situational awareness I mean the ability to be
really present, observe carefully and understand what is going on around you:
the ability of “reading the room” or “smelling the room” beyond what is said.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt;"><br /></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt;"><b>4. How Agile (and Scrum)
has changed the way that the developers think and work? <o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">Agile and Scrum are incredibly effective change
engines: they trigger a paradigm shift in everything. Not only in how we
develop products and services, but in how we lead, in the way we collaborate
with each other, in the way we interact with customers, in how we consider ourselves
as professionals. Embracing agility means embracing continuous change, which in
turn simply means embracing reality. Someone said: life is what happens while
we are making other plans. Believing that things will stay still just to please
our plans is the ultimately insane wishful thinking.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt;"><br /></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt;"><b>5. Scrum is simple but not
easy. How difficult is to make a company Agile? <o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">Being simple is definitely one of the strengths of
Scrum but also one if its pitfalls: it is so simple that many managers fall
into the trap of believing it can become a magic wand for the company´s
problems. A famous quote from Ken Schwaber, co-inventor of Scrum, is: “Agile
development will not solve any of your problems. It will just make them so
painfully visible that ignoring them is harder”.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">And that´s where the tough part starts! Scrum is not
plug-and-play! It´s not just a SW methodology upgrade. It changes some of the
basic assumptions about how products get developed! It´s like installing an iOS
9 app on an iOS 4: it won´t work! You need to upgrade the Operating System! Only
courageous leaders, who are willing to make an impact, dare to start the
journey to upgrade their company´s operating system.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt;"><br /></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt;"><b>6. What should companies do to achieve a successful transformation in the Agile world?<o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">The first step is about asking “Why?” What is the problem
we are trying to solve? There must be a clear need for any improvement change:
imagine how crucial it is to start off such a dramatic change. So any
successful Agile transformation implies a top-down approach, in terms of Company
values, leadership culture, business goals and management support. However, there
are aspects that need to emerge bottom-up, like practices to be selected by self-organized
teams. It has to be a sandwich strategy! Given the importance of the top-down
part in the enterprise change, one of the initial steps is to educate managers,
for them to understand the why, be able to share and communicate the vision,
embrace Agile values and be ready to support people with a new leadership
style. Many times this critical step is down prioritized, if not even
neglected. <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">Finally it is extremely important that teams are
organized so that they can deliver value to customer as fast as possible,
replacing functional teams organized around the system architecture. Effective
teams are cross-functional and have all the competences needed to transform a
backlog item in a product increment within one Sprint.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt;"><b>7. What words of advice would
you give to people who are just getting started with Agile themselves? <o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">Every context is different: so simply copying from
others will not work. Scrum is a good way to start, it is a great teacher: if
you have never tried Agile development, Scrum can give you the framework to be
able to start. At the same time, you need to know many things outside Scrum to
make Scrum work effectively: having an experienced Agile coach to guide you
through the first challenges can be a key differentiator between success and
failure. <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt;"><br /></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt;"><b>8. What are the biggest
challenges that they have to confront, what are the biggest mistakes that they
should avoid?</b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">I have seen few recurrent failure patterns: Product Owners
without authority, knowledge or time, superficial knowledge and lack of
coaching on Agile practices and principles, complacency as opposite to a
culture of continuous improvement. Well, avoiding these failure patterns is one
of the biggest challenges to confront. One of the biggest mistakes is considering
Agile as something to implement: Agile is rather something you are or can be.
Agile is an adjective, not a noun.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt;"><br /></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt;"><b>9. What should people and
teams do to make their workplaces and lives more productive with Agile and
Lean?<o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">There are few things that helped me become more
productive and I have seen also helping individuals and teams I have coached:<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<ul style="margin-top: 0in;" type="disc">
<li class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">When you
have a question to answer, spend time in understanding the question before
jumping to the answer. <o:p></o:p></span></i></li>
<li class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">Do not make
assumptions: genuinely ask why. If you have to make assumptions, try to
validate them as soon as possible. <o:p></o:p></span></i></li>
<li class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">Challenge
how things have always been done. <o:p></o:p></span></i></li>
<li class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">Work on
your strengths, more than your improvement areas. <o:p></o:p></span></i></li>
<li class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">If you wish
to succeed at anything, have a clear vision of what you want to achieve
and consistently take baby steps in the right direction.<o:p></o:p></span></i></li>
</ul>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt;"><b>10. Where do you see things
going to Agile in the future? What changes are coming?<o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">I see contrasting things. From one side I see more and
more “Agile” instances which have nothing to do with agility, where people and
especially managers have lost or probably never got the original meaning of Agile
manifesto: where, for instance, individuals and interactions are in service of
processes and tools rather than the opposite. This can be also considered a
normal evolution. When an innovation reaches the hype, it starts getting late
majority or even laggards in the game: they probably accept Agile just to look
fashionable or to please their boss. On the bright side I see a convergence of researches,
theories, methods and practices coming from really different domains (Entrepreneurship,
Neuroscience, Psychology, Finance, Management, Non-profits, even Military and
Government) which are collectively creating a very visible red thread. And this
red thread is all about coping effectively with fast change by using an
empirical approach, embracing individuals as whole human beings not as
resources to exploit, being mindful, decentralizing power, and creating
meaningful relationships. That´s really exciting and resonates a lot with
agility. On a broader scale, our generation is experiencing a growth in our
consciousness as human race (let’s take for instance social responsibility) and
that´s going to create benefits not only to our industry but to the entire
world. </span></i></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11536310861961046111noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4183261328767912610.post-24977575982617160932016-06-14T19:14:00.000+02:002016-06-14T19:16:01.395+02:00Psychology of continuous improvement<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-1CGmqrLqut0/V2A5r0muC_I/AAAAAAAABrg/cuX-MTRCsnI1F6oGVqQkvNASZiIgyrlhACLcB/s1600/14722241677_7bbbb06dce_z.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="212" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-1CGmqrLqut0/V2A5r0muC_I/AAAAAAAABrg/cuX-MTRCsnI1F6oGVqQkvNASZiIgyrlhACLcB/s320/14722241677_7bbbb06dce_z.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , "trebuchet" , "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10.56px; line-height: 14.784px;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/92799712@N04/14722241677/in/photolist-oqXkx4-fdTyAK-8Yo9S-8cKZp6-5PL1kk-6ZQQNx-5HrzX3-qrR6Ye-b9CQE6-5vaQcQ-ofyjSn-5Fmqqq-7Vsiab-pGtz4k-656ATF-GQhnD7-eb6mV5-48wy3u-ncFsgE-q3E4GN-65aTdJ-dWuzXE-EJiv6-6gFzxb-4aiAj-ft7Uw4-9KeGw-7kJgki-ot797L-EcsyFz-CRyPiq-L6ZNp-94GNfo-7KKLNP-8ZeLgB-gqiyRr-bWDABr-6mpU9T-w569d-7S7r1x-2TdfG4-b174w6-73bg2o-7bk7T-8UuELv-aaMkth-6XowUq-48W2sy-L8Mc3-5gxccT/">Abanico en el mar</a> by <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/92799712@N04/">Ollui Samall Zeld</a></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , "trebuchet" , "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10.56px; line-height: 14.784px;"> / </span><a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/" style="background-color: white; color: #888888; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10.56px; line-height: 14.784px; text-decoration: none;">CC BY 2.0</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I am an engineer! We engineers love well-crafted solutions. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Most of us studied <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operations_research">Operations Research</a>:
we are excited by finding the optimal solution to problems and we like to fix
all at once and even design future-proof solutions.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Sounds great to feel so powerful, doesn´t it?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But why is it so difficult to solve problems when they
involve human beings?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Why can’t we make things happen even when the solution and
the benefits appear so obvious even without analysis?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
For instance: <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Why can’t people simply quit smoking? <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Why don’t most of us parents manage to get their teen-ager
son to clean up his room?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Or why don’t we simply manage to increase the test automation
level in our team?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Don´t they look like much simpler problems than many
technical issues we face every day?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
When it comes to challenges involving people, the issue is
that human beings are not as nice creatures or as beautiful systems as the ones
addressable by mathematical sciences, such as mathematical modeling,
statistical analysis, or mathematical optimization. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
God could have done a much better engineering work! Too many
bugs <span style="font-family: "wingdings"; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-char-type: symbol; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-symbol-font-family: Wingdings;">J</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<ul>
<li>We are the least rational creature on earth: we are driven
by emotions and gut feelings at least as much as by rationality, but feelings
take the lead many times</li>
<li>When the rational parts takes the lead instead, we usually
got stuck in analysis paralysis</li>
<li>We are reluctant to change: we like our current way of doing
things</li>
<li>We are programmed to save as much energy as possible: changing
our routines requires effort</li>
<li>We are blinded by cognitive biases: we interpret the reality
not for what it is, but by comparing it with the maps we have been creating in
our brain since we were born</li>
<li>We are addicted to the now and not very much used to accept
delayed gratifications</li>
</ul>
<o:p></o:p><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So how can we ever achieve anything with such a flawed
baseline system? <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Imagine when you have multiple individuals together forming
a team or even a bigger constellation: an organization!<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Still surprised that up to 70% of all change initiatives
fails? Can we ever succeed?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The good news is that human beings have also great
properties and very effective strengths to use as leverages.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
People are able to go straight to the point if they feel
that the goal is clear and within reach and can be moved by incredibly powerful
intrinsic motivators if they perceive the goal as meaningful and desirable. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
All successful football coaches, for instance, know the
trick very well. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
How many times have you heard a journalist asking about
possibilities of a team to win the championship?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And what was the answer from the coach every time? “We want to play one match at a time”.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Good coaches do not ask their team to focus on the ultimate
goal, but establish goals which are within immediate reach and clear criteria
for their players to know when they have fulfilled those goals: by playing and
possibly winning one match at a time, they get into the habit of winning and
eventually win the championship.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Cheap and Dan Heath report in their book “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Switch-Change-Things-When-Hard/dp/0385528752">Switch</a>” that
psychologist Karl Weick, in a paper called "Small Wins: Redefining the
Scale of Social Problems," said: <i>A
small win reduces importance ('this is no big deal') , reduces demands ('that's
all that needs to be done'), and raises perceived skill levels ('I can do at
least that')." All three of these factors will tend to make change easier
and more self-sustaining.</i><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><br /></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
That´s why the Lean concept of Continuous Improvement (or
Kaizen) is so effective and resonates so much with the way we as humans are
wired: consistently taking baby steps in the right directions makes big goals appear
more feasible to achieve.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
However, being social systems classified as Complex Adaptive
Systems, usually it´s not a smooth path of small wins. More probably it will be about taking one
step forward and two steps back, then three more steps forward and then five
steps to the side. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Nevertheless, by taking the vision of what we ultimately want
to achieve well defined and in sight and, by coupling Hansei with Kaizen,
meaning practicing Continuous Reflection at every step, we are much more well
equipped to achieve anything.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Instead, when a task is too big, the effect on human brain
is overwhelmingly scary. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The book “Switch” reports also that Alcoholics Anonymous challenges recovering alcoholics to get through "one
day at a time". To an alcoholic, going a lifetime without another drink sounds
impossible, but going 24 hours sounds doable.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Small targets lead to small victories, and small victories
can trigger a positive spiral of behavior.<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
Human brain has no trouble achieving baby steps, and as it
does, something else happens. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
With each step, you feel less scared and less
reluctant, because things are working. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
With each step, your brain starts
feeling the change. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
A journey that probably started with anxiety and skepticism
evolves slowly, toward a feeling of confidence and pride. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And at the same time
the change is happening, you as a person grow.<o:p></o:p></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11536310861961046111noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4183261328767912610.post-34746704303199722732015-06-09T16:15:00.001+02:002015-06-09T16:15:36.262+02:00The User Story Workshop<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; tab-stops: right lined 7.0in;">
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-xswGWd3Q5do/VXb0C4i2JGI/AAAAAAAABfA/L-SwMOLFr-Y/s1600/2728096478_554e5768fd_b.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="247" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-xswGWd3Q5do/VXb0C4i2JGI/AAAAAAAABfA/L-SwMOLFr-Y/s400/2728096478_554e5768fd_b.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/jakuza/2728096478/">User Stories in Oxford</a> by <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/jakuza/">Jacopo Romei</a> / <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/">CC BY 2.0</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14.6666669845581px;">What can you do when you </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14.6666669845581px;">need to write a considerable number of User Stories in a very short timeframe?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; tab-stops: right lined 7.0in;">
<h4>
<b><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">Why</span></b><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"> a User Story workshop? </span></h4>
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">It is a useful tool to achieve the goal of writing many stories fast, especially when the
development team has a lot of technical knowledge, or there is a lot of
knowledge outside the team to be used to complement Product Owner’s domain
knowledge. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; tab-stops: right lined 7.0in;">
<h4>
<b><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">What</span></b><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"> is a User Story workshop? </span></h4>
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">When starting a new Release, I suggest to run a a workshop with
the Product Owner, the Development Team(s) which will build the specific
product and all people who can contribute, regardless of their role. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">The goal
of the workshop is to come out with as many User Stories as possible, which can
solve the problem(s) represented by a given number of requirements. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; tab-stops: right lined 7.0in;">
<h4>
<b><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">How</span></b><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"> to run a User Story workshop? </span></h4>
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">Here is the structure I usually propose:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; tab-stops: right lined 7.0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">1. The Product Owner
presents the goal for the next Release and the most important requirements.
This normally takes about 1 hour: participants normally ask clarification
questions<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; tab-stops: right lined 7.0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">2. Participants are
split in groups of 4-5 people and we do a number of (usually 3) 1-hour
iterations structured like that:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: right lined 7.0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">2a. Group brainstorming to elicit as many
stories as possible (30 min)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: right lined 7.0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">2b. Group work integration, where groups
review each other work, find similarities, remove some stories, etc. (30 min)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; tab-stops: right lined 7.0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">The next iteration
might continue on the same requirement or on a different requirement. Sometimes
I tried other creativity techniques besides simple brainstorming, like <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lateral_thinking">Lateral Thinking</a> techniques, e.g. the anti-solution.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; tab-stops: right lined 7.0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">Especially if it is a
newly formed team, not so used with writing stories, I provide a pattern to
follow to brainstorm stories.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"> I ask the team to look at the system from
outside-in and ask themselves <b>who</b>, <b>what</b> and <b>why</b>: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; tab-stops: right lined 7.0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">- Who is the user who
will benefit from the specific function?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; tab-stops: right lined 7.0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">- What is the
function which might contribute to solve a certain problem? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; tab-stops: right lined 7.0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">- Why is that
function needed (to solve which problem)?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; tab-stops: right lined 7.0in;">
<h4>
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><b>My experience</b></span></h4>
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">Generally speaking I found the User Story
workshop very effective: it helps the team focus on the goal and make an
efficient use of all brains around. You can easily write 50 User Stories of
different granularity in 4 hours: sometimes more time is needed to achieve the intended
goal, but I always prefer to start with no more than 4 hours and have other
sessions if needed.</span></div>
<h4>
<b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">Learning</span></b></h4>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">In order to make the US workshop effective, the
people involved should have been trained in what a User Story is and how to
split the work in small slices which cut the system vertically and allows building
an iteratively evolving product which continuously stays shippable. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">When needed,
I propose and facilitate a very effective workshop to teach how and why
splitting a product in small vertical slices: the <a href="http://alistair.cockburn.us/Elephant+Carpaccio+Exercise">Elephant
Carpaccio exercise</a> invented by Alistair Cockburn. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">I do recommend these 2 hours of learning,
engagement and fun.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>What is preventing you to try it out tomorrow? </b></span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11536310861961046111noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4183261328767912610.post-22508575783162478842015-03-22T16:42:00.001+01:002015-03-22T16:49:35.087+01:00Installing Scrum effectively: Upgrade your company´s Operating System!<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; tab-stops: right lined 504.0pt;">
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-KCHgj7GGrtQ/VPnJpkKdXXI/AAAAAAAABV8/_ZLzcYMOX6k/s1600/4353228184_09a2cefa72_z.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-KCHgj7GGrtQ/VPnJpkKdXXI/AAAAAAAABV8/_ZLzcYMOX6k/s1600/4353228184_09a2cefa72_z.jpg" height="213" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: #f3f5f6; color: #212124; font-family: 'Proxima Nova', 'helvetica neue', helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8000001907349px; font-weight: 600; line-height: 18px; text-align: start;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Magic Wand</span></span><span style="background-color: #eeeeee; color: #252525; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 12.8000001907349px; line-height: 22.3999996185303px; text-align: start;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/cdm/2336025560/in/photolist-4yqK1L-av94wB-8T1Fk8-naY6Xr-aehXAi-7viPMa-HxqSH-JFQkb-jsVWfF-dgFtfp-b4GQG6-6nmxAC-7ZQtDH-8DHHBi-e4Xtho-AMjpj-9fh9gF-dhC3RV-4ejRmu-yUDrL-4Ecu9a-8MGwJm-zgubt-dhLo3y-ccndh-ccnde-4ejQWC-a72Zrh-9Jzv4i-zgwTS-54JVUC-djFSgD-djFKDg-dw7kyN-djFSip-4nctQK-4ejRLW-8MzRYD-8ba9jS-8VRXSU-8VNTMv-8VNTUa-8VRXeL-8VNU9K-8VNTrt-8VNTdz-8VRXu3-8VNTFV-dLosGN-7nCB9z/" style="color: #888888; font-size: 14px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank"> </a><span style="font-size: xx-small;">by photophilde</span></span><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="background-color: #eeeeee; color: #666666; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; line-height: 14.7840003967285px; text-align: start;">/</span><span style="background-color: #eeeeee; color: #252525; font-family: sans-serif; line-height: 22.3999996185303px; text-align: start;"><a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/" style="color: #888888; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">CC BY 2.0</a></span></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Scrum is simple but not easy!</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I'm sure that those of you who had seriously tried Scrum can recognize what this sentence really means.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">And being simple is definitely one of the strenghts of Scrum, but also one of its pitfalls: it is so straightforward to understand by managers than most fall into the trap of believing it can become a magic wand for the company problems.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Sometimes without even reflecting about what the company's problems really are!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Ken Schwaber, co-inventor of Scrum said once: “<i>Agile development will not solve any of your
problems – it will just make them so painfully visible
that ignoring them is harder</i>”.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-9mqgQs3_WRs/VPnFcstaVTI/AAAAAAAABVw/atVqEKsf9Tw/s1600/7050697671_954720aabc_z.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-9mqgQs3_WRs/VPnFcstaVTI/AAAAAAAABVw/atVqEKsf9Tw/s1600/7050697671_954720aabc_z.jpg" height="211" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: #f3f5f6; color: #212124; font-family: 'Proxima Nova', 'helvetica neue', helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-weight: 600; line-height: 18px; text-align: start;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Missing operating system_ {error message}</span></span><span style="background-color: #eeeeee; color: #252525; font-family: sans-serif; line-height: 22.3999996185303px; text-align: start;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/cdm/2336025560/in/photolist-4yqK1L-av94wB-8T1Fk8-naY6Xr-aehXAi-7viPMa-HxqSH-JFQkb-jsVWfF-dgFtfp-b4GQG6-6nmxAC-7ZQtDH-8DHHBi-e4Xtho-AMjpj-9fh9gF-dhC3RV-4ejRmu-yUDrL-4Ecu9a-8MGwJm-zgubt-dhLo3y-ccndh-ccnde-4ejQWC-a72Zrh-9Jzv4i-zgwTS-54JVUC-djFSgD-djFKDg-dw7kyN-djFSip-4nctQK-4ejRLW-8MzRYD-8ba9jS-8VRXSU-8VNTMv-8VNTUa-8VRXeL-8VNU9K-8VNTrt-8VNTdz-8VRXu3-8VNTFV-dLosGN-7nCB9z/" style="color: #888888; font-size: 14px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank"> </a><span style="font-size: xx-small;">by <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/cdm/" style="color: #888888; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">K</a>arl-Ludwig Pogemann</span></span><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="background-color: #eeeeee; color: #666666; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; line-height: 14.7840003967285px; text-align: start;">/</span><span style="background-color: #eeeeee; color: #252525; font-family: sans-serif; line-height: 22.3999996185303px; text-align: start;"><a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/" style="color: #888888; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">CC BY 2.0</a></span></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">And that's where the tough part starts!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Scrum is not plug and play! It's not a simple upgrade of the SW methodology currently in use in the company! It changes some of the basic assumptions and thoughts about products get developed!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">It's like installing an iOS 8 app on an IOS 4: it won't work! </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><b>You need to upgrade the Operating System!</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I would like to share with you what I learned to be three fundamental upgrades needed in the company´s Operating System to install Scrum effectively.</span><br />
<br />
<h3>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>1. Cross functional
teams self-organized around value delivered to customers</b></span></h3>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">It is extremely
important that development teams are organized so that they can deliver value
to customer as fast as possible and not around technology or internal product
structure</span><span style="font-family: inherit;">.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">You do not want to have unproductive teams overwhlemed by thousands of dependencies, right?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">You do not want to create unnecessary coordination work and increase your overhead, do you?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">So <b>move away from micro-managed functional teams organized around your system architecture</b>: you will heal your company!</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; tab-stops: right lined 504.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Effective teams are cross-functional and have all the competences needed to transform a backlog
item in a potentially shippable product increment within one Sprint.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; tab-stops: right lined 504.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">They work together to remove waiting times and handovers, which represent waste of
time and knowledge. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">This does not mean at all having a team of generalists. It means instead having a
team of specialists with T-shaped competence, so that they can contribute in
doing the work when necessary, even in knowledge areas different from the one
they are specialized in. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Cross-functional teams learn continuously from each
other's skills and share knowledge inside the team and between different teams. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; tab-stops: right lined 504.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">These teams must be self-organized:
they are the ones who have the best knowledge and must be empowered to
decide how to do the work and continuously adjust their process.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">A cross-functional
and self-organized team can have the possibility to look at the whole
development process, find the weakest link or the bottleneck at hand and do
whatever they see as necessary to fix it. They have enough visibility of the
whole to avoid sub-optimizations typically happening in traditional
environments.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; tab-stops: right lined 504.0pt;">
<h3>
<b style="font-family: inherit;">2. Agile Leadership</b></h3>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; tab-stops: right lined 504.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">In an environment
where teams are empowered and self-organized, leaders stop taking
project decisions or asking for review and status report.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; tab-stops: right lined 504.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">They focus instead
on removing impediments, aligning stakeholders, building a trust environment, coaching, providing feedback, developing people’s skills
and building the capabilities of
the organization: they basically create the conditions for the teams to perform
at their best.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">They cultivate
skills of servant leadership, are empathetic and willing to help.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; tab-stops: right lined 504.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">This is applicable
with different flavors to managers, Scrum masters and Product Owners.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; tab-stops: right lined 504.0pt;">
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: inherit;">Scrum is enabled by
managers who build a culture of discipline and excellence, guide on principles
and values instead of giving complex rules to follow, teach people not to cut
corners, challenge people to high performance and lead by example. They empower
people to choose how they want to work and give room for experiment and
safe/fast failure. Good Agile managers stay close to the teams and Manage By
Walking Around and Listening.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: inherit;">Scrum is enabled by
full time Scrum Masters who have a very good knowledge of Lean, Agile and Scrum
and can coach the team to apply Agile values and principles. They teach and
coach them to challenge the status quo and continuously improve, think and work
as a team, collaborate and challenge each other to grow.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: inherit;">Scrum is enabled by
Product Owners who clarify the Why? and the What?, but not the How? Therefore they
trust the team will work at their best. At the same time they challenge and
support them to continuously improve. Good Product Owners paint the big picture
for the team to take responsibility of the product as a whole and actively
support the team to find ways to connect with the customer. They take the
responsibility to act as a unique interface to the organization for any work
request towards the development team and protect them from interferences.</span></li>
</ul>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; tab-stops: right lined 504.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">It is a lot about
being more than doing. <o:p></o:p></span><span style="line-height: 115%;">See also </span><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/3-necessary-management-mindshifts-fast-changing-world-de-simone?trk=prof-post" style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="color: blue;">3 necessary management mindshifts in a fast changing world</span></a><span style="line-height: 115%;">.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; tab-stops: right lined 504.0pt;">
<h3>
<b style="font-family: inherit;">3. Well groomed
backlog</b></h3>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; tab-stops: right lined 504.0pt;">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">People
might be arguing about what a good Product Backlog is, but here is what
definitely a good Product Backlog is not (but far too often seen
around): a generic list of work items which are not user centric, not
split end-to-end, not estimated, not even always prioritized.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">A high quality
Product Backlog is an enabler for iterative and incremental delivery of high
quality potentially shippable product increments, which is the core of Scrum
(Garbage In-Garbage Out theory applies in this case). It helps the team focus
on the right things and build them faster.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; tab-stops: right lined 504.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">A high quality
Product Backlog is a manageable size, living artifact of Independent,
Negotiable, Valuable, Estimable, Small, Testable (INVEST) User Stories.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; tab-stops: right lined 504.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Such stories are
easier to understand for the team, easier to plan and easier to work, so that
the team can be more productive.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
INVEST
stories allow:<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<ul type="disc">
<li class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Minimize the risk that the team does not deliver
anything at the end of a Sprint. <o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Faster learning and faster development because the team
gets feedback and finds problems earlier. <o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Better prioritization and defer decision due to a
shorter feedback loop. <o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Deliver value more often and therefore can make
customers happier. <o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Teams to be more focused and more motivated, because
they feel a sense of velocity and accomplishment.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></li>
</ul>
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><b>Where do you think you should start first in your OS upgrade?</b></span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11536310861961046111noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4183261328767912610.post-15441063788391568822014-12-11T15:44:00.000+01:002014-12-11T15:44:40.658+01:00The top 2 skills for being an effective Agile coach (or an effective leader)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; tab-stops: right lined 504.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">Being an Agile coach is fun and extremely rewarding, but it is a tough job. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; tab-stops: right lined 504.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">Like a sports coach, you're supposed to help your team and your players perform at the best they can, without playing yourself. You have to influence with no formal authority, so you'd better have a very well equipped toolbox (skills, knowledge, techniques, and experience) if you desire to be effective.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; tab-stops: right lined 504.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">I'm not here today to create a generic list of what those tools might look like. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">I just want to share the t</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">wo coaching skills which helped me most in my 5-years experience as an Agile coach: </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; tab-stops: right lined 504.0pt;">
</div>
<ol>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">Empathy </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">Situational awareness</span></li>
</ol>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-wbeKAIvNDJk/VImiQ2qpEaI/AAAAAAAAA3o/wAdRlgPaFfY/s1600/346073_53126d557b_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-wbeKAIvNDJk/VImiQ2qpEaI/AAAAAAAAA3o/wAdRlgPaFfY/s1600/346073_53126d557b_o.jpg" height="320" width="204" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">rosita by <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/schaaflicht/">schaaflicht</a>/<a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/">CC BY 2.0</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<h3 style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; tab-stops: right lined 504.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">1.<b> Empathy</b> </span></h3>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; tab-stops: right lined 504.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">Empathy is a very important skill for
coaches as well as for leaders, even though I think not many people realize this. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; tab-stops: right lined 504.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">No coach
can be effective without getting trust from clients; likewise no leader can be effective without trust from people she is supposed to achieve success with.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; tab-stops: right lined 504.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">I learned that one of the
most effective ways to build trust is to demonstrate that you truly care about
people and you are committed to their growth. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; tab-stops: right lined 504.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">I learned that people want to
feel they are valued. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">People appreciate when someone is really listening to
them, puts herself in their shoes, is not judgmental and really tries to
understand their viewpoint. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; tab-stops: right lined 504.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">Then of course you have to show that you can really
help them and bring some value, but being “there for them”. when talking to
peopl.e is a necessary step. Otherwise they perceive you just as a sort of
knowledgeable professor. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; tab-stops: right lined 504.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">One of the most rewarding feedback I have ever
received was from a Product Owner I was coaching: “It’s really impressive - he said once - you
look like you’re truly listening when we talk, not just hearing what I’m
saying!”. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; tab-stops: right lined 504.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">Of course it is not always easy and it doesn’t come easy for me
either. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; tab-stops: right lined 504.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">It is a skill to practice (and deliberately practice) to reach what David Rock calls <i>listening for
potential</i>: it means <b>listening to people </b>not as for what they are now<b>, </b>but <b>by thinking at what they can become in the future </b>and be committed to help them<b>
</b>become the best they can be.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;"><br /></span></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-BhwfIsk_6tM/VIms19SSAkI/AAAAAAAAA34/OEmQF6WV5zg/s1600/5370808050_8d5ddd2c44_z.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-BhwfIsk_6tM/VIms19SSAkI/AAAAAAAAA34/OEmQF6WV5zg/s1600/5370808050_8d5ddd2c44_z.jpg" height="219" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mount Everest by <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nasamarshall/">NASA</a>/<a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/">CC BY 2.0</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<h3>
<b><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">2. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px;">Situational awareness</span></b></h3>
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">With </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">situational
awareness</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;"> I mean the ability to be really present, observe carefully and
understand what is going on around you: basically the ability of “reading the
room” or “smelling the room” beyond words. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">This skill always resulted to be
very useful for me in many situations, especially when I meet a team for the
first time or when I deliver training. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">You can understand for instance, who is
with whom or against whom; who is more senior, or who the leader is; who
embraces new ideas or who is skeptical. Of course I do not use it as my only
source of information, but I learned to trust this sense, which I consider a
mix of “gut feeling” and experience in observing human behaviors. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">I apply this
skill continuously: for instance I use it to
diagnose how a team is collaborating. I observe them during the day, at Daily
Scrum and in other ceremonies and I try to understand what is “really” going on
to understand what to do or not to do.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;"><b><i>What are the skills which are most effective and helpful for you?</i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;"><br /></span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11536310861961046111noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4183261328767912610.post-80526065758283126182014-09-24T16:37:00.001+02:002014-09-24T16:37:17.353+02:00Scrum and XP: reconciliating Agile with its rootsI really encourage you to have a look at this awesome session from Robert C. Martin, called <i>The land that Scrum forgot. </i><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/hG4LH6P8Syk?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
Besides the usual pleasure to listen to Uncle Bob, it is an impressive overview of the history of Agile, admirably told by an eyewitness and one of the main actors: you can really see in action the giants (on whose shoulders we're all standing) and feel them like closer friends, more than myths.<br />
Among the different enlightning reflections, Bob Martin draws a clear and interesting perpective of the last decade (and more) about why Agile is somehow not completely fulfilling the original expectations: Agile was originated by developers (all Agile signatories were basically developers), then it got conquered by project managers and lost part of its original intent.<br />
Scrum unintentionally contributed to this, being seemingly so simple to be understood from managers, but so generic about how to build a potentially shippable product increment every sprint to be incredibly hard to adopt. Thus Scrum was actually the way people with project management background used to enter the Agile world either with good intent or opportunism.<br />
On the other side XP was THE Agile method of developers.<br />
<br />
I will try to analyze and compare Scrum and XP here to show how they're aiming at the same purpose and how both effective Scrum and effective XP embody the same genuine Agile principles and values.<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; tab-stops: right lined 504.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Scrum and XP have actually a
lot in common, more than one might think. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; tab-stops: right lined 504.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">They are both based on iterations and have some practices in
common: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; tab-stops: right lined 504.0pt;">
</div>
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: inherit;">the Planning Game
in XP overlaps with the Sprint Planning in Scrum</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: inherit;">both produce a
working SW increment of the most valuable functionalities at the end of each
iteration</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: inherit;">the team is
self-organized and decide how to build a certain function</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: inherit;">business and
developers work together on daily basis</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: inherit;">the system metaphor
in XP overlaps with the concept of User Story which is basically used in every
Scrum Team I know, even though it is not explicitly requested by Scrum which
basically only mention generically a backlog item as input to the Sprint</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: inherit;">both encourage similar
values, and actually share two values: Courage and Respect</span></li>
</ul>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; tab-stops: right lined 504.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">One might also claim they
have some slight differences:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; tab-stops: right lined 504.0pt;">
</div>
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: inherit;">Scrum prescribes
Sprints which can be 1 to 4 weeks long, while the length of an iteration in XP
is 1-3 weeks long</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: inherit;">the customer works
together with developers in XP, while Scrum proposes the role of Product Owner
as customer representative to suit the cases where the customer cannot
physically work with the team (btw that’s one of the reasons why Scrum scales and
XP doesn’t)</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: inherit;">strictly speaking, Scrum
teams do not allow changes to their Sprint Backlog. XP teams instead can allow changes
within their iterations: as long as the team hasn’t started working on a
particular feature, a new feature of equivalent size can enter the iteration in
exchange for the not yet started feature (however many times I teach the same
approach to the Scrum teams I coach, especially when the environment allows and
it does not become the norm).</span></li>
</ul>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; tab-stops: right lined 504.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">However the
biggest difference between Scrum and XP is that Scrum is basically
focusing on how to organize the work, but it does not say anything about how to
do the work, XP instead is more focusing on practices to develop high
quality software effectively.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; tab-stops: right lined 504.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">At the same time I
learned (and thus agree with Dave Rooney) that <a href="http://blog.practicalagility.info/2009/02/scrum-is-not-enough-redux.html">Scrum
is not enough</a> to sustain an effective Agile SW development. Scrum is a
great starting point if you want to learn how to be Agile, but I saw many Scrum
teams, getting more mature with Scrum and not improving their performance overtime
without using proper technical practices, because they accumulated a too big
technical debt. Instead they have to learn to build the product in a different
way.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; tab-stops: right lined 504.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Scrum explicitly
avoids prescribing technical practices, but a Scrum team will hardly succeed
without using certain XP engineering practices, like Test Driven Development,
Continuous Integration, Pair Programming, Collective Ownership, Coding
standards and Refactoring.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; tab-stops: right lined 504.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Effective Scrum and XP together can really unleash the full potential of a team, allow delivering effectively high quality products that customers love and stay true to the original spirit of the Agile manifesto.</span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11536310861961046111noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4183261328767912610.post-24426199146784584932014-09-08T17:41:00.001+02:002014-09-08T17:41:59.175+02:00Scrum is Lean<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; tab-stops: right lined 504.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">I believe that Scrum is the most Lean among all Agile methods. </span></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-YB4hXDYTpBk/VA3LGGm5oHI/AAAAAAAAA1Y/6uJXiWDGo-g/s1600/2336025560_0b19754de5_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-YB4hXDYTpBk/VA3LGGm5oHI/AAAAAAAAA1Y/6uJXiWDGo-g/s1600/2336025560_0b19754de5_o.jpg" height="256" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: #eeeeee; color: #252525; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.399999618530273px; text-align: start;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/cdm/2336025560/in/photolist-4yqK1L-av94wB-8T1Fk8-naY6Xr-aehXAi-7viPMa-HxqSH-JFQkb-jsVWfF-dgFtfp-b4GQG6-6nmxAC-7ZQtDH-8DHHBi-e4Xtho-AMjpj-9fh9gF-dhC3RV-4ejRmu-yUDrL-4Ecu9a-8MGwJm-zgubt-dhLo3y-ccndh-ccnde-4ejQWC-a72Zrh-9Jzv4i-zgwTS-54JVUC-djFSgD-djFKDg-dw7kyN-djFSip-4nctQK-4ejRLW-8MzRYD-8ba9jS-8VRXSU-8VNTMv-8VNTUa-8VRXeL-8VNU9K-8VNTrt-8VNTdz-8VRXu3-8VNTFV-dLosGN-7nCB9z/" target="_blank">scrum </a>by <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/cdm/" target="_blank">David </a></span><span style="background-color: #eeeeee; text-align: start;">/</span><span style="background-color: #eeeeee; color: #252525; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.399999618530273px; text-align: start;"> <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/" target="_blank">CC BY 2.0</a></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; tab-stops: right lined 504.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">And not only because the word "scrum" was first used in 1986 by two professors at Hitotsubashi Univeristy in Japan, Hirotaka Takehuchi and Ikujiro Nonaka, in their famous HBR-published article "<a href="http://www.iei.liu.se/fek/svp/723g18/articles_and_papers/1.107457/TakeuchiNonaka1986HBR.pdf" target="_blank"><b><i>The new new product development game</i></b></a>".</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; tab-stops: right lined 504.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">In 2003 Mary and Tom Poppendieck coined the term <i>Lean Software Development</i> by publishing a <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Lean-Software-Development-Agile-Toolkit/dp/0321150783" target="_blank">book </a>with the same name and proposing </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px;">a translation of Lean thinking and practices to the software development domain. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px;">Lean Sofware development </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">is based on 7 principles, which
may be implemented by means of a number of tools:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; tab-stops: right lined 504.0pt;">
</div>
<ol>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 15px;">Eliminate waste</span></span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 15px;">Amplify learning</span></span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 15px;">Decide as late as possible</span></span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 15px;">Deliver as fast as possible</span></span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 15px;">Empower the team</span></span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 15px;">Build integrity in</span></span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 15px;">See the whole</span></span></li>
</ol>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 15px;">If you want to know more, Mary and Tom published two more books:</span></span></div>
<div>
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 15px;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Implementing-Lean-Software-Development-Concept/dp/0321437381/ref=pd_bxgy_b_text_y" target="_blank">Implementing Lean Software Development: From Concept to Cash</a></span></span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 15px;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Leading-Lean-Software-Development-Results/dp/0321620704/ref=pd_bxgy_b_text_z" target="_blank">Leading Lean Software Development: Results Are not the Point</a></span></span></li>
</ul>
</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; tab-stops: right lined 504.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">Now, even though Scrum and
Lean Sofware development might seem to have formally nothing in common (different
principles and different practices), </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;"> I will try to
explain why and how I think the seven Lean SW Development principles are somehow mapped
(or at least found) in Scrum.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; tab-stops: right lined 504.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><b>1. Eliminate waste</b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; tab-stops: right lined 504.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">The book reports
seven wastes in SW development: partially done work, extra features, extra
processes, task switching, waiting, motion, defects. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; tab-stops: right lined 504.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">I think that the
Scrum framework as such contributes to eliminate those sources of waste:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; tab-stops: right lined 504.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">- the iteration-based
approach, through the use of the Sprint Backlog, and the focus on doing
whatever it takes to get things done and transform the items in the Sprint
Backlog into a Potentially Shippable Product Increment, contributes the
eliminate partially done work<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; tab-stops: right lined 504.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">- the Product Backlog
handling, by building first the features which are more valuable for the
customer and not spend too much time on the ones that are coming later,
contributes to minimize partially done work and not needed features<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; tab-stops: right lined 504.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">- self-organized
teams, who have the best knowledge, who are empowered to decide how to do the
work and who continuously adjust their process through Sprint retrospectives, contributes
to remove extra processes<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; tab-stops: right lined 504.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">- teams focusing on
the Sprint goal minimize task switching<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; tab-stops: right lined 504.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">- cross-functional
development teams working together side by side and daily with the Product
Owner can remove waiting and handover of work items<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; tab-stops: right lined 504.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">- high skilled
development teams, feeling responsibility for product quality, minimize defects<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; tab-stops: right lined 504.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><b>2. Amplify learning</b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; tab-stops: right lined 504.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">Scrum is all about
seeing SW development as a learning process. The Sprint will help create
knowledge both on the product and on the process: the Sprint Review and the
Sprint Retrospective are the main points in time where the knowledge on the
product and the process are built respectively via feedback loops. The Daily
Scrum also creates knowledge about how far the team is from the Sprint goal<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; tab-stops: right lined 504.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">Cross-functional
teams learn continuously from each other skills and share knowledge inside the
team and between different teams. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; tab-stops: right lined 504.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><b>3. Decide as late as
possible</b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; tab-stops: right lined 504.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">A Product Backlog
which is more fine grained on the top and more coarse on the bottom and “just
enough just in time” planning via a Sprint based approach, allow a Scrum Team
to reduce complexity and defer decisions which are not necessary at a certain
point in time. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; tab-stops: right lined 504.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">They can keep instead
options open up to the last responsible moment: they can use time to collect
more information and learn more about the product and the context in order to
take better decision later, based on facts. They will of course learn fast by
means of quick feedback loops provided by the Sprints. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; tab-stops: right lined 504.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">This allows a Scrum
team to be more flexible to react to the changes that will surely happen in the
market and in the technology: they can truly embrace change inside their
process of developing SW.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; tab-stops: right lined 504.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><b>4. Deliver as fast as
possible</b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">Short delivery cycles
represented by Sprints allow deliver quickly to maximize return on investment,
get feedback from real customers and users and reduce risk that you won’t
deliver a product that meets customers’ needs, due to misunderstanding or any
changes in markets and technology.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; tab-stops: right lined 504.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">A team focusing only
on delivering the Sprint backlog will produce potentially shippable SW
increments faster.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; tab-stops: right lined 504.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><b>5. Empower the team</b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; tab-stops: right lined 504.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">Scrum is all about
empowering self-organized teams to find the best way to accomplish work.
Self-organized teams can leverage all members’ talents and intelligence in the
best possible way to achieve their goal as fast as possible. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; tab-stops: right lined 504.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">Real empowerment is
achieved by having the Product Owner to decide the “What” and the “Why” and
explicit it by means of Product Backlog items in the form of User Stories: the
development team will then decide the “How” and find the fastest possible way to
get a User Story done. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; tab-stops: right lined 504.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><b>6. Build integrity in</b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; tab-stops: right lined 504.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">In a waterfall
approach, piling up code without testing often result in a very expensive
re-factoring effort, due to bugs, but especially to requirement change or
misinterpretation.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; tab-stops: right lined 504.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">Quality in a complex
environment like SW development can be built only via iterative and fast
feedback loops. A Sprint provides the main feedback loop mechanism in Scrum.
Inside the Sprint there might be other even quicker feedback loops:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">- the Product Owner
(customer representative) works together with development: they are part of the
same Scrum teams and work daily together: they collaborate on the Product
Backlog and the real Product and this ensures a continuous feedback loop on
requirements and system behavior<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; tab-stops: right lined 504.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">- Scrum teams
adopting XP practices perform continuous refactoring, continuous testing, and
continuous integration, which are Agile ways to build quality in.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; tab-stops: right lined 504.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><b>7. See the whole </b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; tab-stops: right lined 504.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">End-to-end Product
Backlog items (slicing the product end-to-end vertically and explaining why)
and cross-functional teams allow looking at the whole system: they can adapt
the work items and the process to maximize the value delivered and achieve the
Product Vision in the fastest possible way.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; tab-stops: right lined 504.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">An empowered and
self-organized team, working closely and daily with a customer representative
(the Product Owner), have the possibility to look at the whole development
process, find the weakest link or the bottleneck at hand and do whatever they
see as necessary to fix it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; tab-stops: right lined 504.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">They have enough
visibility of the whole to avoid sub-optimizations which typically, in
traditional environments, try to optimize some small part of the system, which
may not help the whole system.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">If you want to implement a Lean thinking in your organization, try to practice effective Scrum first and you will get an extraordinary teacher. Scrum is Agile and Lean.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">What do you think? </span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11536310861961046111noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4183261328767912610.post-18260271892751922022014-08-22T17:36:00.003+02:002014-08-22T17:37:28.621+02:00How to teach Scrum to your boss (and why)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">One of the biggest c</span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">hallenges I usually faced in my experience as Scrum coach is not really related to Scrum as
such, but more to the consequences that Scrum creates in the
organization by exposing the real problems.</span></div>
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; tab-stops: right lined 504.0pt;">
<a href="http://wanttoworkintelevision.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/boss_cartoon.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://wanttoworkintelevision.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/boss_cartoon.jpg" height="320" width="316" /></a><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">So it often happens that </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">some people (especially among managers and senior technical experts), afraid of
losing their position, start to get alarmed by the serious challenge of the
status quo and do their best to slow down the change.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Ever seen that? I'm sure you have. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">And if you want to have any probability of success with Scrum, you'd better do something to address the </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">natural resistance of middle management to
move away from a command and control leadership style.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Where to start?</span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Don't look too far: <span style="font-size: large;">Start with your boss</span>. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Help her</span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"> become a professional 21</span><sup style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">st</sup><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"> century manager </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">capable to build a trust environment where people can develop and team can flourish at their best potential. I</span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">f she becomes knowledgeable enough, she will understand and consequently start dismissing traditional management practices, which make no sense and are even
detrimental in a knowledge working environment.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">That's what I normally do with the managers I work with.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">In two of his inspiring articles, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Denning" target="_blank">Steve Denning</a>, author of the best selling book <a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Leaders-Guide-Radical-Management/dp/0470548681" target="_blank">The Leader's Guide to Radical Management - Re-inventing the Workplace for the 21st Century</a>, says that Agile is <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevedenning/2012/04/09/the-best-kept-management-secret-on-the-planet-agile/" target="_blank"><span style="font-size: large;">The Best-Kept Management Secret on the Planet</span></a> and that <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevedenning/2011/04/29/scrum-is-a-major-management-discovery/" target="_blank"><span style="font-size: large;">Scrum is a Major Management Discovery</span></a>. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Bingo! If you want your boss to support your company Agile transformation and introduction of Scrum, you just have to teach her... <span style="font-size: large;">Agile </span>and <span style="font-size: large;">Scrum</span>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">How can you do that?</span></div>
<h4 style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; tab-stops: right lined 504.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>1. Training and self-education</b></span></h4>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">I dedicate a consistent amount of time in delivering
training to managers, in individual coaching as well as in team coaching with the
Leadership team. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The Management learning program I propose has the
following structure:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; tab-stops: right lined 504.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">- Kick-off with 2-days Scrum training</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">- 2-days Lean and Agile Leadership training<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; tab-stops: right lined 504.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">- Individual and team
assessment to identify strengths, improvement areas and further learning needs (<o:p></o:p></span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">I described a bit the content of the assessment tool in a previous </span><a href="http://evolutionaryagility.blogspot.se/2013/04/a-lean-manager-is-not-coach.html" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;" target="_blank">blog post</a>)<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; tab-stops: right lined 504.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">- Training program (monthly sessions) based on assessment outcomes, which is usually self-led by managers
pairing up with a coach and leveraging on a Learning by Teaching approach<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; tab-stops: right lined 504.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">- Weekly self-learning
activities (Lunch and learn or Lunch and share, Book club)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>2. Gemba</b></span></h4>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; tab-stops: right lined 504.0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18.479999542236328px;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Respect is one of five Scrum core values. </span></span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18.479999542236328px;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Getting bit deeper than its generic surface, it means giving </span></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; line-height: 18.479999542236328px;">people the environment and support they need to do a great job and trust they will do their best to accomplish their goal. It’s about staying close to the teams, where "real" things happen and you can identify ways to improve the system .</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Gemba is the Japanese word which means<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 22.399999618530273px;"> "the real place" (for instance Japanese </span>detectives<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 22.399999618530273px;"> call the </span>crime scene<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 22.399999618530273px;"> </span><i style="background-color: white; line-height: 22.399999618530273px;">gemba).</i><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 22.399999618530273px;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 22.399999618530273px;">So if you want to help your boss to learn Scrum, encourage her to walk where work happens and Scrum actually comes to life.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">In all teams I coach, I try to introduce managers into this “go and see” culture, not only with the goal of getting them to understand teams’ problems and ready to support, but also for making them learn Scrum by interacting with a real Scrum team.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Advertise Sprint reviews (maybe posting catchy flipcharts) or encourage your team to forward invitation even to top managers: for some of them it might be a culture hack, because they might think it is a development team’s stuff.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Pass by your boss' desk and invite her to join for the Daily Scrum. She might claim that she does not want to disturb the team: challenge her to stop asking weekly reports and join the Daily standup instead.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>3. Deliberate Practice</b></span></h4>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Scrum is founded on an empirical process control: the biggest amount of knowledge is created by experience and feedback.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I usually coach the Leadership Team to use Scrum for their work, so that they can learn Scrum by actually practicing it.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Have your boss feel the pain as well as the excitement of working in short iterations.</span><br />
<h4>
<b style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></b></h4>
<h4>
<span style="font-size: large;"><b style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><u>Additional suggestion</u> </b><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"> </span></span></h4>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Have a look at the book </span><i style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Teaching-People-Harvard-Business-Classics/dp/1422126005" target="_blank">Teaching smart people how to learn</a> </b></i><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">by</span><i style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"> </i><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">professor <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Argyris" target="_blank">Chris Argyris</a>, Harvard Business School</span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">He talks about avoidance of learning and how discrepancy between espoused and actual theories of action harms people’s learning: these are actually the biggest problems I found with people and especially with managers which you would not classify as innovators or ealry adopters in the </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffusion_of_innovations" target="_blank">Rogers’ Bell curve on diffusion of innovation</a></span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">So try to keep an empiricist approach: you will lower down your boss' defends and have her more open to new things, because she would feel less in danger.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Address concrete and painful problems and show how Scrum can help her with them. Avoid to fall into the trap of: "this is Scrum, this is not Scrum", or "this is right, this is wrong". Escape discussions based on personal opinions, but try to build a we-are-together- against-the-problem atmosphere. At least you will save a lot of talks and useless discussions.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
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<b style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><u><span style="font-size: large;">Warning </span></u></b></h4>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">I learned not to waste too much time with
laggards and cynics. So if you classify your boss like that, just spend enough time to make sure she does not pull others and
the organization to old behavioral patterns. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Or better, quit your job!</span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11536310861961046111noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4183261328767912610.post-57132122097472599862014-06-09T22:38:00.000+02:002014-06-09T22:46:08.097+02:00Agile is demotivating<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;">
<a href="http://allfacebook.com/files/2012/03/motivate.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://allfacebook.com/files/2012/03/motivate.jpg" height="259" width="320" /></a>A few weeks ago I happened to talk to a couple of University
students who were conducting a survey in different companies about the impacts
on people motivation from moving to Agile SW development. What they told me could
appear surprising to many of you: a consistent percentage of
people answering their survey claimed that they feel extremely frustrated and demotivated with Agile. Are you hit by this? I want to elaborate in this post why I
was not.</div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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What is motivating for <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knowledge_worker">knowledge workers</a> in
21<sup>st</sup> century?<o:p></o:p></div>
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In his extraordinary book “Drive: The Surprising Truth About
What Motivates Us”, Dan Pink sketches what he calls Motivation 3.0. </div>
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Based on scientific
evidence over decades of research, he explains that, once basic living needs (like
food or safety) are satisfied (Motivation 1.0), the factors that are still
nowadays commonly considered as motivating (carrot and stick, e.g, money and punishment) are actually
working only for simple and repetitive tasks. </div>
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These “extrinsic” motivators (Motivation
2.0) are not only useless, but even counterproductive, as soon as tasks require cognitive
effort: in that case “intrinsic” motivators are the only ones which really
work. Motivation 3.0 is based on three pillars:<o:p></o:p></div>
<ul style="margin-top: 0cm;" type="disc">
<li class="MsoNormal">Autonomy - over <o:p></o:p></li>
<ul style="margin-top: 0cm;" type="circle">
<li class="MsoNormal">Time – when to do the
work<o:p></o:p></li>
<li class="MsoNormal">Technique – how to do the
work<o:p></o:p></li>
<li class="MsoNormal">Team – whom to do the
work with<o:p></o:p></li>
<li class="MsoNormal">Task – what work to do<o:p></o:p></li>
</ul>
<li class="MsoNormal">Mastery – ability to
become better at something that matters for you<o:p></o:p></li>
<li class="MsoNormal">Purpose – natural desire
to contribute to something greater than yourself<o:p></o:p></li>
</ul>
<div class="MsoNormal">
You might want to have a look at Dan Pink’s TED talk, <a href="http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_pink_on_motivation">The puzzle of motivation</a>
or to a <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc">nice visual depiction</a>
of the 3<sup>rd</sup> Drive theory on YouTube to get some more insights. Or
simply read the book<span style="font-family: Wingdings; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-char-type: symbol; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-symbol-font-family: Wingdings;">J</span>.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
After having reflected around what is motivating, let’s touch a
bit what Agile is. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Well, if we want to explore the subject from the perspective
of the relationship with motivation, the first thing that comes
to my mind is the 5<sup>th</sup> Agile principle: </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>Build projects around motivated individual. Give them the environment
and support they need, and trust them to get the job done.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Motivation looks like being somehow embedded in Agile: so how can we explain the result from the survey? </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Well I will not give an answer based on a well-defined and exposed theory of what Agile is.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
On the other hand, if I look at the three intrinsic factors
in Motivation 3.0, I can say from empirical evidence what Agile is definitely not.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Agile is not</b>:</div>
<ul style="margin-top: 0cm;" type="disc">
<li class="MsoNormal">Artificial deadlines
pushed on teams for lack of trust<o:p></o:p></li>
<li class="MsoNormal">Commitments taken by
people not actually doing the work or, alternatively, commitment games
(people pushed to commit and then it’s their business to keep the
commitment)<o:p></o:p></li>
<li class="MsoNormal">Processes pushed from the
top (sometimes by people with not enough understanding of the work at
hand) <o:p></o:p></li>
<li class="MsoNormal">Developers not allowed to
choose what they consider the best tools for them to work<o:p></o:p></li>
<li class="MsoNormal">A lot of gate checks before
being allowed to change any line of code<o:p></o:p></li>
<li class="MsoNormal">Teams with not enough
skills or support to succeed<o:p></o:p></li>
<li class="MsoNormal">Bossy team leaders called
Scrum Masters who do the planning and assign tasks to developers<o:p></o:p></li>
<li class="MsoNormal">Senior technical people
just playing the role of “checkers” instead of teaching people how to do a
better job<o:p></o:p></li>
<li class="MsoNormal">Accumulating technical debt and not promoting pride for well crafted code</li>
<li class="MsoNormal">No Product Vision or lack
of understanding why to develop a certain feature<o:p></o:p></li>
</ul>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So, if anyone, who finds herself in a similar reality, names
all the stuff above as Agile, maybe just because she’s using post-its and white
boards, I cannot agree more with her:<b> Agile is demotivating</b>.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I would then like to hear less Agile talks and more lived up
Agile values and principles (and more knowledge, and more practice).<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I subscribe to what I heard James Grenning saying to managers in
his closing keynote at Scrum Gathering London 2011: <i><b>Stop motivating people, but
stop demotivating them!</b></i></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
What is your thinking?<o:p></o:p></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11536310861961046111noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4183261328767912610.post-90683627594604005472014-03-18T16:28:00.000+01:002014-03-18T16:29:38.294+01:00Being a manager in the age of Agile<div class="MsoNormal">
I was reading back the <a href="http://evolutionaryagility.blogspot.se/2013/04/a-lean-manager-is-not-coach.html">post </a>I wrote about one year ago, where
I talked about what a manager can do to build and operate effectively a 21<sup>st</sup>
century organization rooted into Lean thinking.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
To take a long story short, if you are a manager who was
told not to take decisions your team would be able to take themselves, ask for reviews
and reports or push activities onto your people, you’d better not to. But there
are plenty of things indeed you can do (and should do) instead.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I tried to summarize them in the mind map below (click on the image to enlarge).<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And well, I also re-used the title of the workshop I held at
LESS 2012 <span style="font-family: Wingdings; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-char-type: symbol; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-symbol-font-family: Wingdings;">J</span>
(see <a href="http://www.slideshare.net/giusdesimone/learning-to-be-a-manager-in-the-age-of-agile">http://www.slideshare.net/giusdesimone/learning-to-be-a-manager-in-the-age-of-agile</a>) <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-DmqYpJSRcyU/UyS9Nb4G_LI/AAAAAAAAAv4/yF8qYq9FzoY/s1600/A+manager+in+the+age+of+Agile.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-DmqYpJSRcyU/UyS9Nb4G_LI/AAAAAAAAAv4/yF8qYq9FzoY/s1600/A+manager+in+the+age+of+Agile.jpg" height="170" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So, what do you think? Does this visualization support a
clearer picture?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
What thoughts did it trigger?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
What else will you add as necessary or valuable?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
What would you like to see changed in your organization?<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
What would you start doing differently from tomorrow?<o:p></o:p></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11536310861961046111noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4183261328767912610.post-61285955912853434792014-02-17T22:39:00.001+01:002014-02-17T22:40:36.202+01:00The metrics enigma - 2<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.479999542236328px; text-align: justify;">
<i>Second part of guest post from Mauro Bagnato about</i><i> organizational metrics. Enjoy!</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.479999542236328px; text-align: justify;">
<i><br /></i></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-MaDNxm4XmdU/UrRG7GVAqUI/AAAAAAAAAu0/nNjkAqMUESE/s1600/confusion.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-MaDNxm4XmdU/UrRG7GVAqUI/AAAAAAAAAu0/nNjkAqMUESE/s1600/confusion.jpg" height="117" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.479999542236328px; text-align: justify;">
</div>
In my last post <a href="http://evolutionaryagility.blogspot.com/2013/12/the-metrics-enigma.html">The metrics enigma</a> I tried to look at the metrics from a different perspective, starting from the method proposed by D. Hubbard in his fantastic book How to measure anything. In order to turn these insights into practice, I arranged a four-hours workshop with the whole leadership team. Main goal was to share knowledge and to come up with a bunch of brand new organization metrics.<br />
<br />
This “clarification workshop” was arranged in the following way:<br />
<br />
<b>Step 1</b>. Learning&sharing. 1 hour.<br />
Goal of the first timeslot was to introduce a new way of looking at metrics and share insights and reflections. Definition, purpose, risks and incentives were on the agenda.<br />
<br />
<b>Step 2.</b> Understanding why. 30 minutes<br />
The second timeslot was dedicated to the <b>WHY</b>. We tried to answer the question: “Why do we need metrics?” After a very interesting and intense brainstorming session, the leadership team came up with this answer: “We need metrics because we want to understand if we’re improving”. Good start, clarifying the purpose helps tracing the direction to get the metrics we really need.<br />
<br />
<b>Step 3.</b> Undestanding what. 30 minutes<br />
The third timeslot was focused on the <b>OBJECT OF MEASUREMENT</b>. Now the question was:” What are we going to measure?” Well, starting from the why found in the previous step, we just needed to measure the improvement. Unfortunately the word improvement was definitely something too vague and hard to measure, unless we had been able to turn it into something tangible. “What does improvement mean for us?” or better “Let’s suppose to be able to clone our organization and instill in the cloned one a massive dose of improvement, while holding the amount constant in the original one. What change do you imagine you would actually observe in the cloned organization?”. Those questions triggered an interesting discussion ended up with the statement:<b> if we want to understand whether our organization is improving or not, we need to observe certain dimensions: delivered value, external perception, learning, innovation and climate</b>. Now we had five objects of measurement even if they still needed further clarification to be measured.<br />
<br />
<b>Step 4.</b> Metrics definition. Two one-hour iterations<br />
The fourth timeslot was focused on turning each dimension into metric. In order to facilitate the discussion and to work on more items in parallel, I split the leadership team into two groups and asked them to go through a four phases discussion. The following picture describes the proposed logical path.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-fKbagUCkpwc/UwKAZKaOafI/AAAAAAAAAvg/FKGiGBBZZWE/s1600/metricenigmafig1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-fKbagUCkpwc/UwKAZKaOafI/AAAAAAAAAvg/FKGiGBBZZWE/s1600/metricenigmafig1.jpg" height="145" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
If we are able to turn each dimension into something really tangible, it should be easy to directly derive the metric…basically this was the main idea. For example, if innovation meant generating ideas only, we could assume that measuring the number of ideas would tell us how innovative we are. Thus we must understand the meaning of innovation first. In other words the further clarification phase (see the picture) means keep repeating the actions in the step 3 till the vague concept of innovation becomes tangible.<br />
<br />
A deep clarification of the object of measurement should lead us to the metrics but… how can we check if those metrics are really good? Did we consider all the aspects? Did we miss something? Next “control” phases in the path help answering those questions. Before going deeper into those phases, we need to make some reflections first. Let’s start from the assumption that measuring means getting information and that getting information requires a certain investment. The amount of this investment should be tied to the importance of the information. Since the reason why we collect information is that we want to reduce the uncertainty related to a certain decision, then the importance of the information is directly related to the relevance of the decision we need to take. (in the financial context reducing the uncertainty related to an investment decision could save a lot of money). Starting from these considerations, the phase 3 requires to answer the question: “which decision does this measure inform?” or in a different way “do we really need this measure?”.<br />
<br />
The last “control” phase comes at the end of the chain. Setting a metric in itself inevitably influences people behavior in ways that may or may not be the intended outcome. Here is an example of possible side effects or incentives a metric may produce. Let’s assume that the metric used to monitor a help-desk performance is the number of handled calls. This metric may generate the side effect that help-desk workers are encouraged to conclude the call as soon as possible without solving the problem. In this case the real outcome (side effect) of the metric is far from the expected benefit. On the other hand if the metric was the customer feedback collected at the end of the call, then help-desk workers would be encouraged to give the best service possible to their customers.<br />
<br />
It was interesting to see that only few of the metrics found at the beginning of the path, passed the final control phases!<br />
<br />
The outcome of this intense, tiring, but interesting workshop was a bunch of metrics related to two dimensions only. Yes…we didn’t manage to complete all the work, but we learnt together how to tackle the metric problem in a different and structured way. We found out how to solve the metrics enigma!<br />
It was a collaborative work of the whole leadership team that gained the fundamental result of building a shared vision around the metrics.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11536310861961046111noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4183261328767912610.post-69333133703314784702013-12-30T15:12:00.001+01:002013-12-30T15:13:35.494+01:00What the hell is a Sprint Review?<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>This is the last post
before New Year’s Eve: so it is time to “review” the year which is going to
give us the gift of enjoying the last days in its last month. That’s why I
decided to spend few lines about Sprint Review.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>2013 has been for this
blog quite an interesting journey of 22 articles: I learned a lot by publishing
them and I hope the 9000 readers (R)Evolutionary Agility had in the last 2
years have learned something as well. I wish you all an exciting and joyful 2014!<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<img src="http://www.threewill.com/wp-content/uploads/ScrumLargeLabelled.png" height="185" width="400" /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Some weeks ago I delivered a 3-days course for Scrum Masters.
I usually visualize the agenda as a backlog of subjects we prioritize together
throughout the training.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p>During a coffee break a guy approached me and asked: “I
recognize the different ceremonies in the agenda, but I never heard about
Sprint Review. We normally do a Sprint Demo: is it the same thing?”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“It depends on what you do in your Sprint Demo. Can you tell
me more?”, I answered.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“Well, at the end of the iteration our Program Manager calls
for a Demo meeting. All Scrum Masters are attending and reporting what we
have been doing during the past 3 weeks”.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“So what are you demoing then?, I asked.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“We’re presenting a powerpoint slide set, showing a detailed
report of the different activities during the Sprint, who was doing what and
how much time was spent given the people allocation”.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Again? Yet another manipulated buzzword!? <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And yet another empirical evidence of how an organization
can produce so powerful antibodies to resist and protect itself from cultural
change bacteria.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So let’s see if we manage to inject some virus of learning
and growing mindset: these are usually quite effective in spreading willingness
for improvement.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Let’s start from some why: why is a Sprint Review important?
What is the purpose it is meant to serve?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Scrum is grounded in empirical process control theory and therefore uses an iterative and incremental approach to optimize the path towards a certain business goal by means of fast feedback loops. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
As any other implementation of empirical process control, it is based on 3 pillars:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<ol start="1" style="margin-top: 0cm;" type="1">
<li class="MsoNormal"><b>Transparency</b><o:p></o:p></li>
</ol>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt;">
All information necessary to
handle the process must be available to those handling the process<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<ol start="2" style="margin-top: 0cm;" type="1">
<li class="MsoNormal"><b>Inspection</b><o:p></o:p></li>
</ol>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt;">
The different aspects of the work must be inspected frequently enough so that unacceptable variances can be detected. Of course the skill and diligence of the people inspecting the work resul matter.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 11.5pt;"><br /></span></div>
<ol start="3" style="margin-top: 0cm;" type="1">
<li class="MsoNormal"><b>Adaptation</b><o:p></o:p></li>
</ol>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt;">
If the inspector determines from
the inspection that one or more aspects of the process and the resulting
product are unacceptable, the inspector must adjust the process or the material
being processed. The adjustment must be made as quickly as possible to minimize
further deviation.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt;">
The Sprint Review meetings are
used to inspect progress toward the Release Goal and to make adaptations that
optimize the value of the next Sprint.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="http://www.abe.org.uk/public/images/learn1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://www.abe.org.uk/public/images/learn1.jpg" height="133" width="200" /></a>The Sprint Review is then an important learning point and a fundamental
step in the empirical process control applied by Scrum. That’s why calling it just
“demo” is mislabel, since this word does not capture the real intent of this ceremony.
Let’s analyze what might be the learning points for the main actors:<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<ul style="margin-top: 0cm;" type="disc">
<li class="MsoNormal">The Product Owner and key
stake-holders learn what is going on with the product, what are the
results of the Sprint and check whether those results are able to bring
the whole Scrum Team closer to the Product Vision. The Sprint result will
have anyway impact on the Product Backlog for the next Sprint Planning:
new stories might be added, changed or removed and prioritization might
change.</li>
</ul>
<ul style="margin-top: 0cm;" type="disc">
<li class="MsoNormal">The Development Team learns
what is going on with the Product Owner and the market. They also learn whether the
Sprint Result validated the assumptions they made during the Sprint Planning.
For that reason it might be useful to review the estimates, to check whether
they got confirmed after the story was actually built: in this way the team
know how to estimate better and build a better baseline to relate further
estimations. They’d better review also the
different team metrics and the Sprint Burndown Chart to gather interesting data
for the coming Sprint Retrospective. Review of Team Working Agreements and
Definition of Done will indicate the team whether what they learned during the
Sprint can affect the team’s rules or their quality criteria.</li>
</ul>
<div class="MsoNormal">
For these reasons, the most important element of the Review is
the conversation and collaboration between the Team and Product Owner
to learn the situation, to get advice, and so forth.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It is a public ceremony: the Product Owner, Team members,
the ScrumMaster, plus customers, stakeholders, experts, managers and anyone
else interested is allowed to attend and anyone present is free to ask
questions and give input. The Scrum Master will work to maximize the learning
of all participants.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Even though calling the Review just “demo” doesn’t really
make the point, the demo is anyway an important part of it. But what does it
make sense to demo?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Let’s have a look at some of the Principles in the Agile
Manifesto:<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><b>1) Our highest
priority is to satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery of
valuable software<o:p></o:p></b></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><b>3) Deliver
working software frequently, from a couple of weeks to a couple of months, with
a preference to the shorter timescale. <o:p></o:p></b></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><b>7) Working
software is the primary measure of progress. </b></i><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It doesn’t mention powerpoint slides, right? <span style="font-family: Wingdings; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-char-type: symbol; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-symbol-font-family: Wingdings;">J</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So the only demo which makes sense is showing an
installation of an integrated potentially shippable product increment. BTW, the
Product is the only language which everybody, from business to developers will
understand the same way. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Remind: spend as little time as possible on preparing for
the demo. If you need to spend a lot of time there must be something wrong
somewhere.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="http://www.changeiponline.com/wp-content/uploads/change.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://www.changeiponline.com/wp-content/uploads/change.jpg" height="132" width="200" /></a>If you read and liked this article, I have a question for
you: </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>How will you change your next Sprint Review?</b><o:p></o:p></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11536310861961046111noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4183261328767912610.post-48784860371741905502013-12-20T14:35:00.000+01:002013-12-20T14:35:11.470+01:00The metrics enigma<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<i>This is the third post I host from Mauro Bagnato: my friend, if you keep
producing at this rate in 2014, I will be gladly forced to open a special
column for you! <o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<i>A hot issue is touched this time: organizational metrics. The ones among
you who are constantly reading (R)Evolutionary Agility know that I wrote
already an article about this subject and I have plans to write more about it. </i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<i>Whether
you celebrate Christmas or not, I wish you all restful and peaceful season’s holidays!<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<i><br /></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-MaDNxm4XmdU/UrRG7GVAqUI/AAAAAAAAAuw/M2oQDt5jULI/s1600/confusion.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-MaDNxm4XmdU/UrRG7GVAqUI/AAAAAAAAAuw/M2oQDt5jULI/s1600/confusion.jpg" height="146" width="400" /></a></div>
I’ve been struggling against
organizational metrics for almost two years.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
I must say that it’s a bit
frustrating to look for a reasonable answer to the question: “which are the
right metrics that an Agile organization should have?” and get the feeling to be very
close to the goal, but without being able to hit the target!<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
These days I recalled a famous
quote from Charles Kettering saying: “<i>A
problem well stated is a problem half solved</i>”. It made me reflecting. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Couldn’t
it be that it’s so hard to find the solution of the metric enigma just because
of the wrong question? Got convinced about it, I decided to start from scratch
and to ask myself: Why do we need metrics? <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Here you are the answers which
came up in my mind.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
We might need metrics because we want
to:<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraph" style="mso-list: l2 level1 lfo1; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
</div>
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: Symbol; text-indent: -18pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt;"> </span></span><span style="text-indent: -18pt;">find the evidence that the Agile transformation
is worth the investment</span></li>
<li><span style="text-indent: -18pt;">understand if we’re improving</span></li>
<li><span style="text-indent: -18pt;">understand if we’re getting closer to our vision</span></li>
<li><span style="text-indent: -18pt;">show our stakeholders we’re a fantastic
organization</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Symbol; text-indent: -18pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt;"> </span></span><span style="text-indent: -18pt;">etc. (I could go on…)</span></li>
</ul>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
This approach looked promising. Clarifying
the purpose traces the direction and helps identifying the metric we really
need, the ones linked to our goal. So far so good I’d say! <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
And now? How to move further? How
to turn this goal into metrics? How to measure something so vague and undefined
like stakeholders’ perception, improvement, ROI of the agile transformation
etc.? In other words, how to measure <b>intangibles</b>?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
The answer, or better, the method
to measure this kind of things is described in the book “How to measure
anything” from Douglas Hubbard. This very interesting book proposes a three
steps way to measure intangibles:<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraph" style="margin-left: 35.45pt; mso-list: l3 level1 lfo3; text-align: justify; text-indent: -35.45pt;">
</div>
<ol>
<li><b>Concept of measurement. What does measurement means?</b></li>
</ol>
<div class="MsoListParagraph" style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
Usually measurement is
thought as the process aiming at quantifying something or giving something an
exact value. This common conception implies that measurement means reaching a
sort of certainty (numbers or values are expression of certainty).<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraph" style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
This idea fits very well with
the measurement of lengths, widths, etc. but when it comes to the intangibles
(like happiness, empowerment or motivation) it doesn’t help a lot.<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraph" style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
Scientists use a different
definition: <i>A measurement is a
quantitatively expressed reduction of uncertainty based on one or more
observations.</i><o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraph" style="text-align: justify;">
This definition introduces
two interesting points:<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraph" style="margin-left: 72.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt;"> </span></span>Measurement is no more connected to the idea of
certainty but is defined as reduction of uncertainty.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraph" style="margin-left: 72.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt;"> </span></span>It’s possible to measure anything (intangible or
not) observing the impacts, the effects, the results.<span style="text-indent: -36pt;"> </span><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
2. <b>Object of measurement. What do we have to measure?</b><br /><br />Even using the
new definition, something could still seem immeasurable simply because the
object of measurement is not clear or is not clear enough. Very often
clarifying the meaning of what we want to measure makes the problem much
easier. What does it mean? That’s the <i>fundamental
question</i> to answer. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
How to measure
happiness? One million dollar if someone is able to find the answer!<br />
Let’s try
to change perspective and decompose the problem by answering the question: <i>What does happiness mean?</i> For me
happiness means having enough time to dedicate to my family and to my hobbies. Measuring
the time spent that way gives me an indication of how happy I am!<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
I found
something <b>measurable</b> to observe reducing
the uncertainty related to the measurement of happiness!<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
It might
happen that the answer to the <i>fundamental
question </i>is still something intangible. In this case the trick is to repeat
the question till the answer is become something measurable.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
D. Hubbard
suggests also a different way to clarify the object looking at the effect or
the consequences: L<i>et’s suppose to be
able to clone someone and to be able to instill a massive dose of happiness in
the cloned guy, holding the amount constant in the original one. What do you
imagine you would actually observe that would change for the cloned guy?</i><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36pt;">
Whatever the
method, once the object of measurement is clear, it’s possible to find the way
to measure it.<span style="text-indent: -36pt;"> </span><br />
<br /><b>3. Methods of measurement. How do we measure?</b><br /><br />I’ll not dig too much into this point but D. Hubbard suggests to make use of whatever methods of measurement based on:</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraph" style="margin-left: 72.0pt; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo4; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt;"> </span></span>Sampling. It simplifies a lot the process of
measurement. We need much less data than we think to get a valid measurement.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraph" style="margin-left: 72.0pt; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo4; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt;"> </span></span>Experiment. Anyone can develop an intuitive method
for measurement and the best approach is to try it and learn from it.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-bKANe5wkXIc/UrRHH_1jx7I/AAAAAAAAAu4/-U0-IC1FZsk/s1600/watch.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-bKANe5wkXIc/UrRHH_1jx7I/AAAAAAAAAu4/-U0-IC1FZsk/s1600/watch.jpg" /></a></div>
Let’s come back to the starting
problem and see if the method works. Assuming that we need metrics because we
want to know if we are improving, next step is understanding what improvement
means. Assuming that improvement means delivering more value, now we need to
understand what delivering more value means. Assuming that delivering more
value means delivering what customers really need, what happens when customer
have what they need? Assuming that when customers have what they need, they simply
use it, we could start observing <b>how
many customers really use what we deliver</b>.<br />
We got the object of
measurement! Now the point is how to measure it? How many data are we going to
collect? Making a sampling of the customers could simplify a lot the measurement
itself without compromising the results (see “The rule of five” proposed by D.
Hubbard).<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
It seems we got the point but…could
we get there without wasting our time with all this stuff?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Before answering the question, we
should consider that the outcome of this method is not only metric itself, but
mainly the path to get there. Questioning the need (what we want to achieve), decomposing
it reflecting on its meaning/effect and then finding what to measure, builds a
sort of picture communicating:<o:p></o:p></div>
<ul style="margin-top: 0cm;" type="disc">
<li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list: l4 level1 lfo5; text-align: justify;">what we
want to achieve<o:p></o:p></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list: l4 level1 lfo5; text-align: justify;">how we
want to achieve it<o:p></o:p></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list: l4 level1 lfo5; text-align: justify;">What we
consider important, what we care of.<o:p></o:p></li>
</ul>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Then metric becomes the logic
consequence of this journey.<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
In the next post I’ll tell you
how I applied this method in a 4-hours workshop for defining the metric of the
organization I work with.<o:p></o:p></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11536310861961046111noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4183261328767912610.post-17667748085193845642013-12-02T23:55:00.000+01:002013-12-03T09:47:22.966+01:00The Mango Tree<br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;">
I found out that I like the “gardening”
metaphor a lot (see also <a href="http://evolutionaryagility.blogspot.se/2013/11/product-backlog-gardening-with-love.html">my
latest article</a>).<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto;">
<a href="http://www.indianetzone.com/photos_gallery/50/Mango%20Tree.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://www.indianetzone.com/photos_gallery/50/Mango%20Tree.jpg" height="277" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto;">
<br /></div>
Last Friday I met a colleague during a coffee
break.<br />
<div>
We were sharing some views about what had happened during the week, when
he said: ”You know, this transformation we are all undergoing is like a <b>mango
tree</b>. Everybody seems to want mangos, but no one seems to care about how juicy
they are and to know how to get juicy mangos”.</div>
<div>
<br />
<o:p></o:p><br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto;">
Nice way to put it: don’t you think so?</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto;">
Then we started building upon this metaphor and
having fun taking it to the extremes.</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto;">
And I think that, what we got out of it at the
end, was really good way to explain what does it take to get a team or an
organization become Agile or more generally to make a change successfully
happen.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto;">
So what will a good gardener do in order to get
the juicy fruits she wants to harvest in her garden?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 18.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]-->1.<span style="font-size: 7pt;"> </span><b>Decide
what fruits or vegetables you would like to collect</b><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 18.0pt; mso-add-space: auto;">
The first step is definitely to
define what kind of garden you would like to build and what fruits or
vegetables you expect to get. Then you can go and buy the corresponding seeds
to plant: of course you need to plant mango trees if you want to get mangos. On
the other hand you will never get mangos out of onion seeds (for instance have look at <a href="http://www.infoq.com/articles/adkins-coaching-agile-teams-chapter2">this article</a> from Lyssa Adkins to check out what to seed to get a high performing team)<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: .6pt; mso-add-space: auto;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 18.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]-->2.<span style="font-size: 7pt;"> </span><b>Work a
good piece of land</b><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 18.0pt; mso-add-space: auto;">
Quality of seeds is essential to
get juicy fruits, but so is quality of land. So make sure to have the right
environment for the plant to grow strong. Plants growing nearby can also affect
the taste of fruits and vegetables: for instance if you grow lettuce close to
artichokes, it will probably get bitter. A good gardener knows that, same as
she knows how air pollution can also be very detrimental.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: -35.4pt; mso-add-space: auto;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 18.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]-->3.<span style="font-size: 7pt;"> </span><b>Start
growing small plants</b><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 18.0pt; mso-add-space: auto;">
So how do you think you can verify whether
you bought the right seeds and you worked the land properly? Will talking about
how the plant should look like help? Most probably not.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 18.0pt; mso-add-space: auto;">
Instead a good gardener would start
planting some seeds and grow some small plants. She would water the plant; she
would ensure it gets enough sun (but not too much); she would fertilize it and protect
it, so that it grows strong and can produce the first fruits.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: -35.4pt; mso-add-space: auto;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 18.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]-->4.<span style="font-size: 7pt;"> </span><b>Taste the
fruits and decide what to do </b><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 18.0pt; mso-add-space: auto;">
Finally she will happily pick the
first fruits and taste them to check if they are sweet and juicy enough.
Sometimes you will not even need to wait until the fruits are mature. It won’t
be hard to see quite early if you’re getting the right fruits in the first
place: you will pretty easily tell a mango and a pineapple apart. If you’re
getting the right fruits with the expected quality, you can keep growing the
same tree and maybe plant more of the same. Otherwise you can even remove the
plant or adjust your gardening, trying a different type of fertilizer or dose
the water differently. Until you get the wonderful garden you were looking for.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Does this remind you anything?
Right, it looks like the Plan-Do-Check-Act cycle from W.E. Deming.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="http://www.fairchildgarden.org/uploads/images/Fruit%20Program/fruit_collection/1mango_perfect_size.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://www.fairchildgarden.org/uploads/images/Fruit%20Program/fruit_collection/1mango_perfect_size.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a>BTW, gardening follows
just an empirical approach, the same as Lean and Agile. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Both gardeners and
agilists don’t spend time talking about how things should be done in the best
way, but they start doing things, just enough just in time, and most important they
learn by actually doing, one experiment at a time.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin-left: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto;">
So, what about your <a href="http://evolutionaryagility.blogspot.se/2013/03/12-secrets-of-successful-agile_27.html">Agile
transformation</a>? <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin-left: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto;">
</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin-left: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin-left: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto;">
Are you actually planting seeds and tasting the
first fruits?<br />
Or are you just talking about how a good mango tree should look
like, maybe even without having ever seen one?<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11536310861961046111noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4183261328767912610.post-23600230687947668272013-11-27T09:51:00.000+01:002013-12-02T23:56:27.969+01:00The snowball<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">This week I host another article from <a href="http://it.linkedin.com/in/maurobagnato" style="color: #888888; text-decoration: none;">Mauro Bagnato</a>. Today he shares some reflections about his experience with enterprise Agile transformation and provides a concrete example of a management practice about leading self-organizing teams.</i><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ehZAtxtSuOw/UpWw3QKq61I/AAAAAAAAAuc/rszmZ1eutFA/s1600/snowball.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ehZAtxtSuOw/UpWw3QKq61I/AAAAAAAAAuc/rszmZ1eutFA/s1600/snowball.gif" /></a></div>
After almost three years working as Agile Coach, one of my
personal take away is that the Agile transformation is like a rolling snowball.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Once you <b>really</b> walk this way, your mindset will gradually but inevitably change
till the moment when it’ll be impossible to get back to your old way of
thinking, just like a snowball getting bigger and bigger while rolling downhill.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
A clear example of what I’m saying happened weeks ago.<br />
After a complete re-organization, the management team decided to let people
self-organize to form twelve brand new teams…and the snowball was thrown! The team setup was a great whole day event <span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">(if you’re interested
have a look at my previous </span><a href="http://evolutionaryagility.blogspot.it/2013/11/self-organized-team-setup-how-to-cook-it.html" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">post</a><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
Everyone
had the chance to choose the team to work with, but we all knew that this was just the starting
point.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
How to select the Scrum Masters and the Product Owners? </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
How
to group the teams to form four development units? </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
How to assign a manager to each
unit? </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Those questions and many many others were on the table and needed a fast
answer.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
”Why not letting teams decide again by themselves?” said one
of the managers. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
"Did I get it right?": I thought.<br />
The snowball was getting bigger
and was still rolling…<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So…after having given people all the support and information they
needed to make a conscious decision, teams were asked to select their Scrum Masters and
Product Owners and to give their preferences among the list of managers.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
How did it go? I would say that the whole experiment was a
complete success!<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I’ve got this feeling not because I’m 100% sure
that we found the best setup possible, but because of how much we learned out
of this journey.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And now? The snowball keeps moving and we’ll see what happens!<o:p></o:p></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11536310861961046111noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4183261328767912610.post-46741210996885945752013-11-19T09:45:00.000+01:002013-11-20T21:04:55.500+01:00Product Backlog Gardening, with love!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ikdxE7oI-P8/Uosh_pUhW0I/AAAAAAAAAuE/U3DpFFRbEB4/s1600/Prod+Backlog.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ikdxE7oI-P8/Uosh_pUhW0I/AAAAAAAAAuE/U3DpFFRbEB4/s1600/Prod+Backlog.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Wikipedia (btw, the
most successful example of an emergent product from a self-organizing team)
provides the following definition:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>Gardening
is the practice of growing and cultivating plants. It involves an active participation
and tends to be labor intensive, which differentiates it from farming or
forestry.</i><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><br /></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I cannot find a better
metaphor to describe the continuous work that a proficient Product Owner needs
to do with the Product backlog.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<ol start="1" style="margin-top: 0cm;" type="1">
<li class="MsoNormal">First step is actually to plant a seed. That’s the purpose of
defining the Product Vision together with the customer, answering the
questions: What do we want to accomplish? And why? All gardeners know that
quality of the seed is essential and of course you need to plant cherries if
you want to get cherries and you cannot get roses if you plant onions.<o:p></o:p></li>
<li class="MsoNormal">After you plant the seed, you need to water and fertilize it. Then
the first small sprout will come out of eliciting a set of <b>SMART</b> (Simple,
Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Traceable) requirements, focusing on
customer needs, on the problems to solve or better on the problems worth
solving.<o:p></o:p></li>
<li class="MsoNormal">The tender small plant now needs a good environment to strengthen
and grow. Gather all needed people in a User
Story workshop and collaboratively write down as much as stories as
possible. You as a Product Owner, exactly like a good gardener, do not
have to do all the work yourself: you need proper tools and a fertile
land. So use the best land, i.e. the power of the diverse brains around
you. Present your Goal for the next Release Cycle and the related
Requirements. Make use of creativity techniques to elicit as many User
Stories from the Team as possible. Try to identify top <b><a href="http://www.solutionsiq.com/resources/glossary/bid/56573/Minimum-Marketable-Features">MMF</a></b>s and break them
down into User Stories, or cluster User Stories into MMFs.<o:p></o:p></li>
<li class="MsoNormal">Good User Stories should be <b>INVEST </b><o:p></o:p></li>
<ul style="margin-top: 0cm;" type="disc">
<li class="MsoNormal"><b>Independent:</b> Stories are easiest to work with if they
are independent. <o:p></o:p></li>
<li class="MsoNormal"><b>Negotiable... and Negotiated</b>: A good story is negotiable. It is not
an explicit contract for features; rather, details will be co-created by
Product Owner, programmers and testers during development.<o:p></o:p></li>
<li class="MsoNormal"><b>Valuable</b>: A story needs to be valuable to the
customer. Think of your Product as a multi-layer cake: a story is
supposed to give the customer the essence of the whole cake, and the best
way is to slice vertically through the layers. Developers often have an
inclination to work on only one layer at a time (and get it
"right"); but a full database layer (for example) has little
value to the customer if there's no User Interface. <o:p></o:p></li>
<li class="MsoNormal"><b>Estimable</b>: A good story can be estimated. We don't
need an exact estimate, but just enough to help the customer rank and
schedule the story's implementation. Being estimable is partly a function
of being negotiated, as it's hard to estimate a story we don't
understand. It is also a function of size: bigger stories are harder to
estimate. Finally, it's a function of the team: what's easy to estimate
will vary depending on the team's experience. <o:p></o:p></li>
<li class="MsoNormal"><b>Small</b>: Good stories tend to be small, such that the team can do 6-10
stories in a Sprint as thumb rule. Above this size, it will be too hard
to know what's in the story's scope, it will delay the feedback loop and
increase the project risk.<o:p></o:p></li>
<li class="MsoNormal"><b>Testable</b>: A good story is testable. Writing a
story carries an implicit promise: "I understand what I want
well enough that I could write a test for it." Teams are made more
productive, by writing customer tests, in terms of Acceptance Criteria, before implementing a story. <o:p></o:p></li>
</ul>
</ol>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 35.4pt;">
INVEST is not only an acronym, but means the Product Owner needs to invest
time, energy, skills and, why not , love, to make the plant flourish like all
passionate gardeners do. And you cannot achieve it on your own: you can have a say on the "INV" part, but you will never get the "EST" without your team. Remember: <i>Gardening involves an active participation and
tends to be labor intensive, which differentiates it from farming or forestry.</i><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 35.4pt;">
<br /></div>
<ol start="5" style="margin-top: 0cm;" type="1">
<li class="MsoNormal">A good Product Backlog is of <b>manageable size</b>, more granular on the
top and more general towards the bottom, so that you do just enough, just
in time work. Continuously trim useless leaves to give more space and
lymph to the buds going to bear fruit soon: the User Stories being
developed in the coming iteration and transformed in a potentially
shippable product increment. Nevertheless continue watering and
fertilizing the plant, looking a bit ahead to set the stage for later
buds and fruits.</li>
<li class="MsoNormal">If you want to collect many fruits after each Sprint and thus
maximize the <b>Return on Investment</b>, you might need to split User Stories in
smaller chunks. But beware: splitting by architecture or by implementation
details is a common mistake. It creates smaller stories, but fails several
of the other INVEST criteria and then does not bear fruit. There is no too
small story, unless it fails delivering value to customer. You can find a suggestion of possible good patterns to follow when splitting stories and still keep them INVEST <a href="http://www.agileforall.com/2009/10/patterns-for-splitting-user-stories/">here</a>. An awesome and useful mindmap guiding you through the different patterns can be found <a href="http://www.agileforall.com/2012/01/new-story-splitting-resource/">here</a>.</li>
</ol>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://spectrumcil.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/gigo.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="175" src="https://spectrumcil.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/gigo.gif" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">GIGO theory</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto;">
One of the biggest causes of poor Product
quality is a poor Product backlog, exactly like a sick plant cannot bear juicy
fruits: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garbage_in,_garbage_out">GIGO</a>
theory applies <span style="font-family: Wingdings; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-char-type: symbol; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-symbol-font-family: Wingdings;">J</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto;">
<span style="font-family: Wingdings; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-char-type: symbol; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-symbol-font-family: Wingdings;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto;">
So are you constantly gardening your Product
Backlog with love?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto;">
Or are you expecting to harvest without hard
work and passion? <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin-left: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto;">
I’m sorry to say that you will only collect
invaluable fruits, my friend!<o:p></o:p></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11536310861961046111noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4183261328767912610.post-53845591303698125832013-11-06T16:47:00.000+01:002013-11-19T09:47:33.295+01:00Self-organized team setup: how to cook it!<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>Today I have the pleasure to host an article from my friend <a href="http://it.linkedin.com/in/maurobagnato">Mauro Bagnato</a>. It's an interesting post around self-organization and what it takes to make it happen and working functionally to achieve a compelling goal. </i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-fM4aAiLv_KQ/UnpWeZMybII/AAAAAAAAAsE/_TxUqehaOM4/s1600/frying+pan.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-fM4aAiLv_KQ/UnpWeZMybII/AAAAAAAAAsE/_TxUqehaOM4/s1600/frying+pan.jpg" height="161" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
What does self-organized team setup mean?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Put a hundred people together in the same room, ask them to
form twelve teams and wait till the magic happens!</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Sounds quite easy, fun and fast, right?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So…why don’t we try it
tomorrow morning in our organization?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Unfortunately it does not happen that way; you need to mix
together the right ingredients in the right quantity and with the right timing.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
If you want, here is my recipe: </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<ol>
<li>Start with a massive quantity of the Lean discipline R<i>espect People: </i>trust them, let them decide and truly believe that, given the goal, they will find the
best way to get there. </li>
<li>Keep on shaking the whole organization (starting from the leadership team) to be sure
that this fundamental ingredient is very well spread and understood by everyone.</li>
<li>Now mix with a purpose, a goal that WE, as a
collective, strive to achieve. Take it very carefully, because only a common and inspiring goal may overcome
the inevitable selfish choices that may occur during the team setup: we’re not here to build only one
marvelous team, we’re not here to fulfill only our personal aspirations, but we are here to work TOGETHER to
build a brand new organization setup that will take all of us close to our goal. That’s our mantra!</li>
<li>Don’t forget just a pinch of organization constraints: a
very few rules the teams have to respect while forming.</li>
<li>Now blend everything together in a whole day event where the
initial chaos, due to a hundred people moving, chatting and laughing, will turn step by step into
twelve groups of people (the future teams) ready to cope with all the challenges they will face.</li>
<li>Don’t forget that good ingredients are not enough to have a
perfect flavor. You need the right cooking time and procedures as well: in our case coaching
and communication. Involving the whole organization during the preparation,
keeping everyone informed, letting everyone understand what we’re doing (and above all why we’re doing it
that way), challenging the current way of thinking are definitely what we need for a perfect flavor.</li>
</ol>
<span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">And now enjoy!</span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11536310861961046111noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4183261328767912610.post-82257147940648198432013-11-01T13:29:00.002+01:002013-11-19T16:55:44.349+01:00Change is optional: survival is not mandatory<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;">
As many of you can have guessed, the title I chose for this
post is inspired by a quote from <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._Edwards_Deming">W.E. Deming</a>.<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;">
When I got to know Deming for the first time, many of his lessons
came as a revelation to me: they were kind of resonating with my personal thoughts
and reflections, but still they cleared out many clouds.</div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="http://thingsmagazine.net/projects/081/000.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://thingsmagazine.net/projects/081/000.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a>One of those I prefer is: </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“<i>…most troubles and most
possibilities for improvement add up to proportions something like this: 94% belong to the system, 6% are attributable to
special causes</i>.” </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I think that this simple sentence can trigger several
reflections about how to make things happen and especially how changes can have
a chance to happen and possibly stick.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Below are mine, from my personal survival handbook <span style="font-family: Wingdings; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-char-type: symbol; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-symbol-font-family: Wingdings;">J</span>.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<ol start="1" style="margin-top: 0cm;" type="1">
<li class="MsoNormal">Look
at the system<o:p></o:p></li>
</ol>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt;">
An organization, even a single
team, is a complex network of people, who are complex beings. If you really
want to leverage on all potentials to affect it, you must look at it as a whole
system. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt;">
Try to sketch the possible options you have ahead, possible impediments
and way to overcome them to reach your goal: you might realize that you need to
take many steps, in order to get any progress. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt;">
Prefer actions who affect the
environment around or the process to do things, instead of addressing directly
a specific problem: they will have a more lasting impact. And, whatever level
you want to affect, consider acting also one level up.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<i><span style="font-size: x-small;">“It does not happen all at once. There is no instant pudding.”-W.E.
Deming</span><o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<ol start="2" style="margin-top: 0cm;" type="1">
<li class="MsoNormal">Involve
people<o:p></o:p></li>
</ol>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt;">
Try to understand your team or organization
very well. Learn about the invisible networks, the inner relationships among
people, who is friend of whom, who is most sensitive to certain subjects and
who counts more or is more influential on certain subjects, whether he has a
formal power or only a de-facto leadership. Talk to people, with a preference
for informal chats (coffee machines are a perfect place sometimes). <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt;">
<i><span style="font-size: x-small;">“A desk is a dangerous place from which to view the world” – J. Le
Carré</span><o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt;">
Create an alliance: find
initiators to support you and involve them in creating a shared strategy for
the change. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt;">
Chase innovators eager to try new things out first and learn from people
actually doing the work. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt;">
Find also sponsors to support you in difficult
situations and leaders who can help with crossing the chasm and reach out the
majority.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt;">
<i><span style="font-size: x-small;">“The greatest waste … is failure to use the abilities of people…to
learn about their frustrations and about the contributions that they are eager
to make”- W.E. Deming</span><o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt;">
Strive for ways how to collect as
much feedback as possible, especially from skeptics, but do not spend time in
convincing cynics and possible saboteurs.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<ol start="3" style="margin-top: 0cm;" type="1">
<li class="MsoNormal">Communicate
properly<o:p></o:p></li>
</ol>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt;">
You cannot just plan your change
at your PC, create a slide ware and then ask to deploy it to the whole
organization. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt;">
How many times have you tried to
do that way? How many times did it work?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt;">
<i><span style="font-size: x-small;">“Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different
results.”- A. Einstein</span><o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt;">
Instead explain the “why” for the
change; make people aware of what it might mean and relate the change to their
daily problems.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt;">
Have people desire the change (what’s in it for me?), support
them with the change, provide the necessary knowledge and give them time to learn. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt;">
Offer role models, lead yourself by example and help people with mentoring and
coaching on how to change.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt;">
<i><span style="font-size: x-small;">“If you want to build a ship, don't drum up people to collect wood and
don't assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless
immensity of the sea.” – A. de Saint-Exupery</span><o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<ol start="4" style="margin-top: 0cm;" type="1">
<li class="MsoNormal">Reward
behaviors not outcomes<o:p></o:p></li>
</ol>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt;">
When you make a change or learn
something new, usually your performances at the stuff affected by the change
are getting a bit worse, especially at the beginning. So give room for
experiments and possible failures, so that people are not afraid to try new things.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt;">
Celebrate short-term wins and
success stories; make them visible and share the results with information
radiators. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt;">
Publicly reward those who are learning more or sharing more with
others, so that the change can go viral. Express appreciation for the right behaviors
so that the desire for change is continuously reinforced.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt;">
<i><span style="font-size: x-small;">“The most important figures that one needs for management are unknown
or unknowable” – W.E. Deming</span><o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<ol start="5" style="margin-top: 0cm;" type="1">
<li class="MsoNormal">Use an
empirical step-wise approach<o:p></o:p></li>
</ol>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt;">
Before taking any step, try to
guess which effect it will have in relation to your goal. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt;">
Make a hypothesis and try to
validate it as quick as possible with minimum viable actions and fast feedback.
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt;">
However changes in a complex
environment are never a linear process you can plan upfront, set goals and
KPIs, deploy it to the organization and track the progress. That’s why
sometimes you must simply try things out. That is sometimes absolutely not bad,
stated that you try to fail fast and reflect on what you
learned to find a different path. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt;">
Of course using an empirical
process control implies that you can observe your system to be able to inspect
and adapt. Therefore enable full transparency; make relevant information
visible as much as possible from everybody to everybody to be able to really
understand what’s going on and act accordingly. Otherwise your change will
degenerate into chaos.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt;">
<i><span style="font-size: x-small;">“It is not enough to do your best; you must know what to do, and then
do your best.” – W.E. Deming</span><o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
How much time and effort are you spending really nurturing your
system?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
How much are you learning from people actually doing the
work?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Are you really making changes happen or just increasing the
entropy of your system into chaos?</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
And if don’t mind about change and how to make changes effectively,
skip the whole article and just consider that: </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>“<span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">It is not necessary to change. Survival is not mandatory.</span>”
– W.E. Deming</i><o:p></o:p></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11536310861961046111noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4183261328767912610.post-66975318625951796422013-10-13T23:56:00.001+02:002013-11-19T09:46:38.697+01:00The myth of “Scrum of Scrums”<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.globelink.co.uk/images/myth_vs_travel1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://www.globelink.co.uk/images/myth_vs_travel1.jpg" height="244" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
There are a lot of myths about Scrum and <a href="http://www.agilenutshell.com/agile_myths">Agile</a> in general. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The most commonly found both by googling and in reality are:<o:p></o:p></div>
<ul style="margin-top: 0cm;" type="disc">
<li class="MsoNormal">Agile Teams do not plan<o:p></o:p></li>
<li class="MsoNormal">There’s no documentation
in Agile development<o:p></o:p></li>
<li class="MsoNormal">Agile development is not
predictable<o:p></o:p></li>
<li class="MsoNormal">Agile Teams do whatever
they want<o:p></o:p></li>
<li class="MsoNormal">BTW, Agile Teams do not
work hard, but just play around<o:p></o:p></li>
<li class="MsoNormal">Agile is only for small companies
developing web applications</li>
</ul>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Ever heard anyone saying that?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I bet you have. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
However having the discussion about scaling Agile (and Scrum
in particular) got more and more attention, yet another myth emerged:<o:p></o:p></div>
<ul style="margin-top: 0cm;" type="disc">
<li class="MsoNormal">When you scale Scrum to
more teams, you handle dependencies and coordination among teams with Scrum
of Scrums</li>
</ul>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I think there’s hardly anything more dangerous and harming
for both Scrum and large companies willing to adopt Agile SW development.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Actually dependencies are handled in Scrum by actually
eliminating or at least minimizing them. That is done in many dimensions and
here are 5 key things you cannot miss:<o:p></o:p></div>
<ol start="1" style="margin-top: 0cm;" type="1">
<li class="MsoNormal">First of all development
teams must be cross-functional, meaning that they have all needed
competencies to transform a product backlog item in a potentially
shippable product increment. This is complemented by adopting a collective
code ownership, where anybody is allowed to touch any line of code needed
to deliver a product increment at the end of the sprint: otherwise you constrain
your team with a lot of dependencies from outside<o:p></o:p></li>
<li class="MsoNormal">Backlog items shall be in
the form of end-to-end User Stories, cutting the system through all layers
from front-end to the back-end to produce a potentially shippable piece of
function: a component based development produces instead a hell of
dependencies<o:p></o:p></li>
<li class="MsoNormal">User Stories shall be
INVEST, where the I stands Independent, so that they are easier to work<o:p></o:p></li>
<li class="MsoNormal">In a scaled Scrum approach
the <a href="http://evolutionaryagility.blogspot.se/2012/11/how-to-build-big-product-in.html">Product Owner Team</a> develops a unique Product Backlog to feed all
development teams and ensure that they are as much independent as possible
so that they can move fast with little need to coordinate with each other<o:p></o:p></li>
<li class="MsoNormal">Scrum teams plan together
so that residual dependencies are detected as early as possible<o:p></o:p></li>
</ol>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.hrworld.be/hrworld/uploadedImages/Themes/Items/Help-SOS.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://www.hrworld.be/hrworld/uploadedImages/Themes/Items/Help-SOS.jpg" height="212" width="320" /></a></div>
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If all that is implemented and being impossible to foresee
everything in advance, you will use the Scrum of Scrum as a mechanism to manage
coordination needs which pop up during the sprint.<o:p></o:p></div>
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It’s not a meeting of Scrum Masters to report some kind of
status, but a possibility for a person who got a problem to rise up her hand
and get fast help and support from other teams.<o:p></o:p></div>
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BTW, if you think about, the acronym is SOS.<o:p></o:p></div>
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So it is not meant as the umpteenth coordination structure,
but more as an emergency procedure to adopt when some team has put or is going
to put something on some other team’s feet.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Otherwise, if any possible effort to minimize or at least reduce
dependencies in advance is not taken, you will put so much overhead on your
teams, that will basically kill their velocity and productivity.<o:p></o:p></div>
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On the other hand, if you’re not able to implement real
Scrum with only one team, how can you succeed in scaling it? <o:p></o:p></div>
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You’d better run your projects in a traditional way!<o:p></o:p></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11536310861961046111noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4183261328767912610.post-85952123820612910782013-09-24T15:56:00.001+02:002013-11-19T09:48:41.923+01:00An Agile Conference in the Heart of Europe<br />
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Last week I went to <a href="http://agileprague.com/">Agile
Prague 2013</a> conference.</div>
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The conference was great and again I would like to share
with you the most interesting take-aways I brought home from the sessions I
attended.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<li class="MsoNormal">The
first one is from <a href="https://twitter.com/sbarber">Scott Barber</a>’s
keynote. <o:p></o:p></li>
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He had a point that, regardless the
fact that we talk about SW engineering, we are not very much learning from
other more “classic” engineering fields. For instance in SW industry many still
doubt about the value vs. cost of testing and there’s a spread tendency of considering
SW development like manufacturing instead of R&D. That’s different in
Classic Engineering, which is by the way a far more mature industry: <o:p></o:p></div>
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- No one questions the value of testing:
how could you put a bridge in production without producing a prototype and
testing it thoroughly? <o:p></o:p></div>
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- The Team is both responsible
and legally accountable for quality/safety<o:p></o:p></div>
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- “Go Live” decisions are
(relatively) easy<o:p></o:p></div>
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So we would be well served to study
“other” fields of Engineering, consider real R&D practices for new software
development and forget titles, but be responsible and accountable as a Team.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<li class="MsoNormal">The
second great insight was from <a href="https://twitter.com/KevlinHenney">Kevlin
Henney</a>’s keynote.<o:p></o:p></li>
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He started from the consideration
that you’d better concentrate on what you can complete, because you learn by
finishing things (as btw we are all taught by the Lean SW principle “Deliver as
fast as possible”). So he introduced a theory from 1990, called <i>Worse Is Better</i>, of why software would be
more likely to succeed if it was developed with minimal invention. <o:p></o:p></div>
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And yet we have not learnt this
lesson in 2013! <o:p></o:p></div>
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The theory claims that it is far
better to have an under-featured product that is rock solid, fast, and small
than one that covers what an expert would consider the complete requirements.<o:p></o:p></div>
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This is all at the heart of Agile
SW development, in contrast with the classical <i>“The</i> <i>right thing”</i> design philosophy
and the failing ambition to define everything from the beginning. Ralph Jonson
said: “Architecture is the decisions that you wish you could get right early in
a project, but that you are not necessarily more likely to get them right than
any other”. <a href="http://evolutionaryagility.blogspot.com/2012/11/wearing-right-glasses_9.html">An
empirical process control is what works best in SW development</a>: properly
gaining control of the design process tends to feel like one is losing control
of the design process.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<li class="MsoNormal"><a href="https://twitter.com/davidhussman">David Hussman</a> in his provocative
talk “Renaissance, Reformation and NonBan” urged the need for a
Renaissance and Reformation of Agile back to its original spirit and
practices from what sometimes now became only yet another process. We
should learn again from masters like Ward Cunningham, Alan Cooper or Jeff
Patton. What’s old is new again and very much necessary: storytelling, pairing,
test driven. We need for instance better discussions, not better
documents. What other reforms are needed today? He proposed NonBan: the
least amount of process adopted by very skilled persons with the most real
and measurable value. Interesting perspective, isn’t it?<o:p></o:p></li>
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<li class="MsoNormal">Finally
I found inspiring <a href="https://twitter.com/andreaprovaglio">Andrea Provaglio</a>
talking about Dreams. He presented an organizational model based on 3
pillars: Dream, Order and Action. The Dream is about intent or vision,
Order is about rules, functions and procedures, while Action is about production
and skills. He mapped very nicely this model into Scrum: the Dream is the
Product backlog, the Order are the Scrum ceremonies, while the Action is
the Sprint, where a Dream-bit (a User Story) is actually transformed in a
potentially shippable product increment. As counterpart of Dreams there
are Needs, stuff that we need to do, like defects to fix. They fall into the
backlog as well and it would be interesting to measure the Dreambits/Needs
ration in our Product Backlog.</li>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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I gave my contribution to the Conference by delivering a
session called “12 ingredients for a successful Agile transformation” which had
quite a big audience and which is based on a series of posts I published on
this blog (see <a href="http://evolutionaryagility.blogspot.it/2013/03/12-secrets-of-successful-agile.html">Part
1</a>, <a href="http://evolutionaryagility.blogspot.com/2013/03/12-secrets-of-successful-agile_18.html">Part
2</a> and <a href="http://evolutionaryagility.blogspot.com/2013/03/12-secrets-of-successful-agile_27.html">Part
3</a>).</div>
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You can find all presentations stored at this <a href="http://agileprague.com/presentations-2013.htm">link</a>.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Videos from all sessions will be soon available at this
<a href="http://agileprague.com/videos-2013.htm">link</a>.<o:p></o:p></div>
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If you like to get info on the progress, follow @Agileprague
on Twitter.</div>
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After my presentation I got an interesting question: "Do you think that signatories of the Agile Manifesto had foreseen that all in 2001?"<br />
I answered: " I do not know if they had envisioned this when signing the Agile Manifesto, but I challenge anyone to demonstrate me that you can really implement Agile values and principles without all that is needed to transform the paradigma of an organization".<br />
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Does anyone feel like accepting the challenge? :)<br />
What's your opinion?</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11536310861961046111noreply@blogger.com1